


hard times

by kaleidoscopestars



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Demons, M/M, Magic, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-04-24 09:05:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14352336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidoscopestars/pseuds/kaleidoscopestars
Summary: when Taeyong had thought about all the things he wanted to do at college, getting a demon stuck in his apartment definitely wasn't on the list





	1. upside down

**Author's Note:**

> this entire au was based off a weird conversation and a shitty picture edit and it somehow spiralled into this! shoutout to benji for putting up with me talking constantly about this and also for proofreading it and making sure i didn't embarrass myself with my shitty grammar!

Taeyong lives a normal life. He goes to an okay university, majors in a subject he realised he disliked after the first year, but he sticks with nevertheless because apparently it’s a useful degree. He has a relatively boring part time job with shitty hours and even shittier pay. His friends are assholes some of the time and annoying the rest of the time, but he still loves them- not that he’d ever admit it out loud, let alone to their faces. 

The typical college experience.

At least that’s what he tells himself when he collapses into bed each night, eyes bleary from tiredness and brain swimming from the amount of information he’s trying to cram into it. 

“Dude, come on,” Ten’s voice is whiny and even through the slightly staticky phone connection, Taeyong can tell he’s drunk. “You haven’t come out with us in ages, I miss you and I’m pretty sure Johnny does as well.” Johnny yells something in the background and Ten shouts at him to ‘ _shut the fuck up,_ ’ voice muffled as if he’s covered the microphone on his phone with his hands.

“I told you,” Taeyong says “I have too much work to catch up on.”

A lie. Taeyong had been asleep when Ten had called and he has no intention of doing any of the essays that are slowly piling up on his desk. He’s bone tired and the last thing he wants to do is go drinking. Especially with Ten who seems to have a limitless amount of energy and will undoubtedly want to stay out all night.

“Pleaseeeeee.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Taeyong ends the call before Ten can complain any more and throws his phone across the room. It lands somewhere underneath his desk, whatever, he’ll find it in the morning. He collapses back onto the bed, already half asleep. 

There’s a faint buzzing noise from the other side of the room and he sighs inwardly. Ten never knows when to give up. His phone doesn’t shut up so he pulls his pillow over his head and wills himself to sleep, trying not to think of everything he has to do in the morning.

He isn’t sure what wakes him. It could’ve been any one of a number of things. There’s a weird smell that’s somewhere between candyfloss and burnt toast and the air feels thick and electric, like the moment before a summer storm breaks. That alone, however, is unlikely to be what woke him. It’s far more likely to be the loud swearing coming from the corner of the room. 

It takes a few seconds of blankly staring at the wall before Taeyong’s brain finally wakes up enough to realise that there probably shouldn’t be anyone in his room. His roommate had dropped out at the start of the year and Taeyong had confiscated Ten’s spare ‘emergency’ key after the last time Ten had broken in and eaten all of his food, citing his hunger as the ‘emergency’ in question.

Taeyong throws his arm out, feeling blindly for his lamp and after what feels like an eternity he finally finds it and turns it on. Everything is normal, the floor is clear, his desk is covered in textbooks, his laundry basket is slightly too full, the closet door is open from when he rushed out of the apartment that morning, there’s a man on his ceiling.

There’s a man on his ceiling.

“What the fuck.” Taeyong’s voice comes out as a squeak.

The man’s head whips around and he stares straight at him. Taeyong does the first logical thing he can think of and throws his alarm clock at the man. It hits him on the head with a satisfying clunk and then falls to the ground. The man, however, stays firmly stuck to the ceiling.

“What in Lucifer’s name was that for?” The man has the nerve to look shocked which is enough to make Taeyong’s temper, already stretched thin by stress and lack of sleep, snap. So, fuelled by rage now as well as fear, he does the next, obvious, logical thing and throws his lamp at the man. This time, however, the man was expecting it and he skitters sideways across the ceiling like an overgrown spider with fewer legs. The lamp sails into the wall and shatters, plunging the room into darkness.

Complete darkness, apart from two red dots on the ceiling.

Taeyong throws himself out of bed and turns the lights on, “Are your eyes fucking glowing?”

“Yours don’t?” The man sounds genuinely surprised.

“Of course they don’t! Get off my ceiling or I’m calling the police.” Taeyong slowly steps back towards the door. His heart is beating way faster than it should be and he hopes the man can’t see the way his legs are shaking.

“I’d really rather you didn’t.”

He can’t stop himself from laughing at the ridiculousness of it all “You can’t just sneak into people’s houses and then expect them to not call the police.” Taeyong’s hand is on the door handle. 

The man sighs. “I’m going to murder you for this, Donghyuck,” He says to the empty air next to his left shoulder and then turns back to Taeyong. He mutters something low and guttural in a language that Taeyong doesn’t recognise and everything fades to black.

 

Taeyong wakes up with a pounding headache and a vague memory of the weirdest nightmare he’s ever had. Ten would have a field day if he knew Taeyong was dreaming about creepy guys on his ceiling. He’d probably tell Taeyong it’s because he’s lonely and antisocial, and then use it as an excuse to drag him out clubbing or some shit. As he walks out of his room he glances up at the corner where the guy had been the night before. Sure enough, it’s empty.

He stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes and turns on the coffee machine, leaning on the counter as he waits for the pot to fill. Watching it is strangely therapeutic. He shuffles across the kitchen to get a mug.

There, above the oven is the man. Still on the ceiling and still watching Taeyong intently. 

So, Taeyoung does the obvious, logical thing and screams. To his horror the man screams back.

His voice is impossibly loud and screechy, more like a murder of crows than a man, so Taeyong slams his mouth shut before the neighbours decide to file a noise complaint. Thankfully the man shuts up as well. 

He walks to the cupboard, grabs the first mug he sees, pours himself a cup of coffee, and sits down at the rickety table in the centre of the room. Never once taking his eyes off the man. He fights the urge to throw something else, or maybe drag the unused mop out of the cupboard and hit him with it until he gets off the ceiling and leaves. 

“Who the fuck are you and what are you still doing in my house?”

“My name’s Doyoung and I’m stuck here.” He looks sheepish, at least as sheepish as it’s possible for someone to look when they’re sitting upside down on a ceiling.

Taeyong raises an eyebrow, “How are you stuck there? You managed to move from my room to this one without any problems.”

“It’s going to take a lot of explaining so it might be best if I just-”

“Please, go ahead, I have all day.” He doesn’t actually. His first lecture started half an hour ago, but his alarm clock hadn’t gone off. Apparently launching it across the room into someone’s head can break it. He’ll have to remember to get a new one.

Doyoung sighs and closes his eyes for a second, composing himself. “I’m a demon.”

Taeyong almost spits out his coffee “You’re a what?” He laughs, but it sounds forced even to his own ears. This has to be the stupidest thing he’s heard in months and he’s friends with Johnny, for God’s sake. 

“A demon,” Doyoung says again. Slowly this time, as if he’s talking to a child “I can prove it if you want.”

“No, no, it’s fine, you don’t-” Taeyong trails off mid sentence as Doyoung’s eyes start to glow like embers. His whole face becomes more pallid (if that was even possible), a grey tinge creeping across his cheeks. There’s a horrible crunching sound, like bones grinding together and snapping, and leathery grey wings slowly unfurl from Doyoung’s back until they stretch across most of the kitchen. 

Taeyong fights the urge to wince as the tip of one of Doyoung’s wings grazes against the stack of dirty plates piled next to the sink and threatens to send them crashing to the floor. 

With a low groan, Doyoung rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck from side to side. “Hell, that feels good.”

“Okay, nice party trick, but where the fuck did those wings come from.” Taeyong has to fight to keep the fear out of his voice. There’s only a slight tremor at the end of his words and he feels quite proud of himself.

Doyoung shrugs with one shoulder “It’s complicated, they were in another dimension, but they’re part of my natural form.”

“Your what?”

“My natural form.” Doyoung rolls his eyes “I’m a demon, you can’t expect me to look like a human.”

“Then why didn’t you have the wings in the first place?” Something about Doyoung’s attitude really pisses him off, but he can’t put his finger on it. Maybe it’s his face?

“I was _trying_ to materialise in the courtyard in front of the building, wings are kind of hard to explain if someone walks by.” As Doyoung talks, Taeyong notices that his incisors are longer than they should be. He looks like a fancy dress vampire. It’s ridiculous. 

“If you were trying to materialise there then how come you ended up in my fucking room.”

Doyoung coughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck with his claws, “Something went wrong with the portal I was summoning, but it wasn’t my fault. I did everything perfectly.”

“And yet somehow you’re here.” Taeyong finishes for him, putting his empty mug down on the table, “Sounds like you did do something wrong.”

Doyoung hisses at him, _actually hisses_ , like he’s a fucking cat or something. To be completely honest, it’s kind of terrifying and makes him look more reptile than human. Taeyong jumps so high he almost falls sideways off his seat and has to save himself by grabbing the table.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Doyoung spits, “My brat of a little brother decided it’d be funny to switch some of the runes around. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, one time he kicked over a candle and I ended up in Greenland.”

“But did you see him do it?” Taeyong gets up and put his mug in the sink, ducking under Doyoung’s wing as he crosses the kitchen. “Did you see him switch the runes around?”

“No. But I know it was him, no one else was in the house.”

“Have you considered, just maybe, possibly, you fucked up and this is your fault.”

“There’s no way I caused this to happen, everything was perfect! I checked!” Doyoung’s voice is growing more and more frustrated and his cheeks have gone pink. Although, there’s a chance that that’s just from sitting upside down on the ceiling and not from anger. 

Taeyong throws his hands up in mock surrender, “Okay fine! This is all your brother’s fault, but can you please get off the ceiling now, you’re making my head hurt trying to talk to you when you’re the wrong way up.”

“I told you, I can’t.” Doyoung pushes away from the ceiling with his hands to prove his point and his legs stay firmly in place.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re _still_ in my apartment! Go find someone else to terrorize, I have a class to get to.”

“I told you.” Doyoung’s teeth are gritted and every word is carefully enunciated, “I can’t. I’m stuck.” 

He stretches one of his wings out across the kitchen towards the front door, but about halfway there he hits an invisible barrier. There’s a loud bang and a flash of orange light so bright it leaves imprints floating across Taeyong’s vision. Doyoung swears loudly and Taeyong notices that the tip of his wing is smoking.

“You win!” Taeyong lets out a hollow laugh. “You’re actually stuck. But how the fuck does that work, how can you make a spell, or whatever it was that brought you here, fuck up _that much_ ?”

“Magic isn’t logical, it isn’t like science.” Doyoung says, the patronising tone from before is back and Taeyong wants to punch him “Getting one syllable wrong or drawing a line in the wrong place could be catastrophic. Or it could do anything.” He gestures at himself.

“You can stay there until I get back,” Taeyong says, “On two conditions; you put the wings back wherever they were before and you don’t touch anything in here.” Not that he really has any choice but to let Doyoung stay. 

“Okay.” Doyoung says simply. He rolls his shoulders and his wings vanish with a faint pop, leaving behind only the smell of burnt leather.

Taeyong just stares at him blankly. “You mean it was that simple the whole time. You can get rid of your wings that easily? Why did you have to do the whole B-rated horror movie thing before?” 

Doyoung shrugs, Taeyong feels irritation pricking at him like millions of tiny needles. He really wishes Doyoung would quit acting like he knows everything.

“It’s more effective. You should’ve seen your face!” Doyoung crows, eyes bright. It’s the scariest he’s looked so far, but if you asked Taeyong why that was he wouldn’t be able to form an answer.

“Whatever,” Taeyong says shortly. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

He ducks back into his bedroom before Doyoung can say anything else and grabs his bag off the floor, shoving textbooks into it. When he’d drunkenly said on New Years that he wanted this semester to be different, this definitely hadn’t been what he’d meant. He’s pretty certain that in all his twenty-two years of life he’s never even considered it possible that a demon could materialise on his ceiling. Shit like that just didn’t happen apart from in books and the sci-fi shows that Johnny liked to watch. It isn’t real. Magic and demons aren’t real. That’s something that everyone in their right mind knows.

Even if they are real, what are the chances that one would accidentally end up in Taeyong’s room? There are well over a hundred apartments in this block alone. Why him? 

He pulls on a slightly cleaner pair of sweatpants than the ones he’d been wearing. At some point, he’s going to have to face doing his laundry, but for now, he really can’t be bothered. He has other, more important things on his mind like his economics essay or the fucking demon in his kitchen.

Picking his bag up off his bed, he all but runs out of the flat, not bothering to stop and say goodbye to Doyoung. If he walks fast he should still make it in time to meet up with Ten before his next lecture. As he makes his way towards campus he wonders who he should tell about this… situation. Ideally, Doyoung would’ve fucked off and he wouldn’t have to ask anyone for advice, but sadly, that isn’t the world he lives in and he’s pretty sure there isn’t anything on the university website about what to do if there’s a demon stuck to your ceiling.

Ten is out of the question. He’d definitely find the whole thing hilarious and would probably laugh too hard at Taeyong’s misfortune to be able to offer any useful advice. Not to mention that Taeyong is afraid that Ten and Doyoung would get on far too well for his liking. Johnny is- well- _Johnny_ and there’s a high risk that he’d tell Ten everything. That leaves Yuta and Taeil out of Taeyong’s close circle of friends and Taeyong trusts Yuta about as far as he can throw him which means, by default, he should ask Taeil.

That’s probably a good idea. Taeil is sensible and responsible most of the time and he has his life together in a way that Taeyong doubts he’ll ever be able to achieve despite the fact that there’s only one year between the two of them.

He’s still deep in thought when he arrives at the bench outside the library where he’s meant to be meeting Ten; halfway through trying to decide what the best way to explain things to Taeil would be. 

“You’re late.” Ten says with a grin, looking annoyingly bright for someone who probably didn’t get home until well after 4am.

“If you were really bothered you could’ve walked on without me.” Taeyong replies.

“What? And miss seeing my favourite person? Not a chance.” Ten slings an arm around Taeyong’s shoulders as the walk and Taeyong snorts and half heartedly tries to shake him off.

The walk to the lecture theatre seems to take twice as long as it normally does. Ten chatters on and on- telling Taeyong about what he missed the night before and how Johnny tried to get into a fistfight with a lamppost on the way home. But Taeyong can’t focus on what he’s saying, his brain already going at a thousand miles an hour. So he just nods and smiles and hopes that Ten doesn’t notice how distant he’s being.

Needless to say, the lecture is something of a disaster. Taeyong is tired from barely sleeping the night before and he has to fight to keep his eyes open. On top of that, he’s so distracted that even when he isn’t falling asleep he can’t keep up with what the professor is saying.

When the class finally ends, he stumbles out in a daze, his notepad devoid of anything useful. He catches Ten on his way out and makes him promise to send him a copy of his notes. Ten says he will, as long as Taeyong comes out with him and Johnny next time Ten asks him to. Groaning inwardly, Taeyong agrees and then instantly regrets it. There’s a high chance that Ten’s notes are just a couple of sentences and a doodle of a cat seeing as that’s pretty much all they ever are. How Ten is passing any of his classes is a mystery to Taeyong. 

With a wave and a rushed goodbye, Ten sprints off down the corridor to his next class, leaving Taeyong alone in the corridor. He has two choices: he can either find a quiet corner in the library to get started on his homework or he can go home and face the demon that’s probably (knowing his luck) still stuck to the ceiling.

The last thing he wants to do is to have to deal with Doyoung. His personality hardly screamed ‘trustworthy guy who you can leave in your apartment without anything bad happening!’ and the thought of the destruction he could potentially cause in the time Taeyong is gone is making him antsy. All he wants is to get home as soon as possible before Doyoung decides to light a fire or go through his tax records or whatever it is that demons do in their free time.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket as he makes his way home. There’s a new scratch on the top corner from where he launched it across his room the night before and the battery is hovering somewhere in the red but there should still be enough charge to make a call.

 _“Hi Taeyong, what’s up?”_ Just hearing Taeil’s voice somehow manages to make Taeyong feel better.

“Uhhhh,” Taeyong hadn’t exactly thought of a way to explain this to Taeil without sounding mad, or maybe like he was trying to play a very late and very badly thought out April fool’s joke.

 _“That’s cool.”_ Taeil replies. There’s a low hum of voices behind him and the sound of mugs clinking against tables.

There’s a second of silence as Taeyong’s brain frantically tries to come up with something, _anything._

“Do you want to come over later?” He finally asks. It’ll probably be easier to explain this whole thing to Taeil if he can actually show Taeil the very real demon who’s definitely stuck in his apartment. There’s less chance of Taeil thinking that it’s the stress of this semester getting to him or that ‘there’s a demon stuck in my apartment’ is a metaphor for Ten refusing to get off his couch (again).

“Yeah, it’s been ages since I’ve seen you.” Taeil replies “My shift at the cafe finishes at 3, so I’ll see you some time after that.”

Taeyong rolls his eyes “It’s been a week since we last met up. Not even that, it’s been five days.”

“Oh,” Taeil sounds genuinely surprised “That’s still too long. I’ll see you later.”

He hangs up before Taeyong can say goodbye. If it had been anyone else it would’ve come off as rude, but it’s just how Taeil is. It would be like getting upset at the sky for being blue.

Taeyong checks the time on his phone before putting it away. 2:05, that gives him just about enough time to tidy up a bit and try to convince Doyoung that going full demon isn’t necessary to convince Taeil that he’s real. Not that Taeyong is worried about how Taeil will react, he’s pretty sure that his friend has seen weirder shit, after all, he is friends with Johnny _and_ Yuta. He’s more worried about Doyoung actually knocking over a pile of plates this time, or maybe putting a claw through his microwave. 

It takes Taeyong longer than usual to find his keys. He’s sure that he stuffed them in his pockets along with his phone that morning but they aren’t there. Eventually, he finds them at the bottom of his bag hiding underneath an empty gum packet.

He steps in through the door and at first glance, everything seems perfectly normal. His coffee mug from that morning is still in the sink; there’s a book lying open on the coffee table that isn’t actually a table, but a glorified wooden box that someone- he’s pretty sure it was Johnny- had scrawled ‘COFFEE TABLE!’ on in sharpie; there are red symbols drawn across his ceiling.

Wait.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing.”

Doyoung jumps and spins around to face Taeyong. Except he doesn’t really jump because he’s still firmly stuck to the ceiling, it’s more of a violent jolt.

“I’m trying to get myself out of here.” He replies as if that explains everything.

“Couldn’t you have found a way to do it that wouldn’t ruin the paintwork? You do realise I’m going to have to find a way to explain this to the landlord.” Taeyong glares at him.

Doyoung makes a weird shrugging gesture that seems to say ‘not my problem’ and Taeyong finally notices what’s in his hand.

“What the- is that _ketchup?_ ”

“I couldn’t find any sheep’s blood in your fridge so I had to make do,” Doyoung frowns at the label on the bottle “Although I’m not sure it’s going to have the same effect.”

“How stupid can you be? Of course, it’s not going to have the same effect,” Taeyong says, dropping his bag on the sofa. “I don’t know anything about magic, but I know that.” 

“Shut up before I turn your insides outside.” Doyoung spits back.

“Brave words for someone who can’t even get himself down off a ceiling.” Taeyong kicks off his shoes and walks over to the fridge “Can you get rid of all that now? I have a friend coming over.”

“You have _friends_? Wow, shocking.” 

“What are you? Twelve?” 

“No, I’m just surprised that anyone would choose to put up with you voluntarily.”

Taeyong grabs a yogurt out of the fridge, quickly checking to make sure it’s still in date, and then turns around and sticks both his middle fingers up at Doyoung.

Doyoung just stares blankly back at him.

“Can you get rid of them or not?” Taeyong gestures at the symbols with his spoon.

“I guess.” Doyoung mumbles something under his breath and waves his hand. There’s a cracking noise and a puff of grey smoke and the ceiling is relatively clean again.

“Give me the ketchup as well.” Taeyong says, holding his hand out. The bottle sails through the air and almost hits him in the head.

“Oops, I missed.” There’s a glint in Doyoung’s eyes that tells Taeyong he didn’t miss his hand by mistake.

Taeyong is starting to weigh up the chances of him being able to murder Doyoung before he pulls some weird magic bullshit and kills Taeyong instead when the bell on his door goes off.

“Stay right there. Don’t even think about moving.” Taeyong says as he gets up to open the door, not bothering to wait for Doyoung’s answer.

Taeil looks exactly the same as he always does. Short hair sticking up at odd angles as if he’s been electrocuted or dragged into a wind tunnel and his clothes in a similar state of mild disarray. He gives Taeyong a slightly awkward one armed hug and steps past him through the doorway.

“Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?” He asks “You seemed kinda agitated on the phone.”

“It’s easier if I show you.” Taeyong replies, motioning for Taeil to follow him into the kitchen. Taeil raises an eyebrow but follows him anyway.

Taeyong points at the ceiling, not bothering to say anything.

“Fancy seeing you here.” Doyoung says, a grin stretching across his face. Taeyong can’t work out if it makes him look cute or murderous.

Taeil just kind of sighs and gives Doyoung the part exasperated, part disappointed look he usually reserves for Taeyong when he stays up three nights in a row, or Johnny in general.

“This explains why you never showed up this morning.”

“Sorry about that.” Doyoung replies, and for the first time since Taeyong has met him, he actually sounds apologetic.

“Wait, you guys know each other?” Taeyong’s brain feels like it’s malfunctioning. “How the-”

“We were in the same class last year. Music theory. Doyoung was a transfer student.” Taeil says “We still get coffee together sometimes.”

“But did you know about the whole,” Taeyong waves his hands in Doyoung’s general direction “Demon thing.” Doyoung snorts at that and Taeyong chooses to ignore him.

“He found out by accident.” Doyoung cuts into the conversation. Technically he was already part of it, but that doesn’t stop Taeyong from being annoyed. “My dumbass little brother decided to summon a portal in the middle of my carpet while Taeil and I were working on a project together. After that, I had the choice of explaining everything or wiping his memory and I’m not good enough at memory wipe spells yet.”

“And you’re chill with him being a demon?” Taeyong really feels like he’s still missing something here.

“Yeah, it explains some things.”

“Like what?” Taeyong asks

Taeil shrugs slightly “Y’know, stuff.”

Forget everything Taeyong ever said about Taeil being useful. Even Ten would be better than this.

“This is very nice and all,” Doyoung crawls across the ceiling until he’s almost directly above their heads “But do either of you have any idea how to get me down?”

Taeyong fights the urge to scream and hit Doyoung away from him. The way he moves is too creepy, it reminds him of the girl from The Ring in the way it looks unnatural and plain _wrong_.

“Call Donghyuck.” Taeil says “If he did this he’ll know how to undo it.”

“Donghyuck?” Taeyong feels lost. He remembers Doyoung mentioning the name before but doesn’t remember who it actually was.

“His brother.” Taeil replies.

“And admit he won this time?” Doyoung laughs. “Not a fucking chance.”

Taeil shrugs again “Then I’ve got nothing. You’re just going to have to stay there until you learn to swallow your ego.”

“So, forever then.” Taeyong says.

Doyoung raises both his eyebrows. “Do you really want me around for that long? I’m touched.”

“That’s not what I- Taeil, please make him shut up.”

“There’s nothing I can do to help.” Taeil says. Taeyong wants to cry. He just wants Doyoung off his ceiling so his life can go on like normal. Is that really too much to ask?

“It looks like I’m staying here until we think of something else.” Doyoung says helpfully. Now Taeyong really wants to hit him.

“There’s no ‘we’ in this. You’re on your own, I know nothing about magic and runes and all that bullshit. And I have classes to pass.” He thinks Doyoung might look sad for a split second but then it’s gone and he’s back to looking like a smug bastard.

Taeil hums in agreement. “I might know someone who knows someone.” He says “I’ll ask around, this university's big. If there’s one demon there’s bound to be another.” 

That’s something that Taeyong really doesn’t want to consider.

Taeil stays for a while longer, talking with Doyoung while Taeyong pretends to work on something important on his laptop. He’s actually internet shopping, but as long as he keeps his eyes on the screen Doyoung doesn’t try to antagonise him. Eventually, Taeil leaves, saying something about wanting to get home before it gets dark and Taeyong waves at him without looking up.

Silence stretches across the apartment and while Taeyong would normally find it comforting, tonight it sets his teeth on edge. He closes his laptop and looks up at Doyoung. Red eyes glare back at him. “Jesus, will you stop staring at me all the time.” Taeyong says as he gets up “It’s creepy, find somewhere else to look.”

“You’re the only interesting thing in here and I’m bored.” Doyoung says 

“Turn the TV on then or something.” Taeyong plugs his laptop into charge, purposefully avoiding looking anywhere in Doyoung’s general direction. 

“I can’t reach the remote from up here.” 

“Sucks to be you.” Taeyong says. His stomach grumbles uncomfortably and he realises he can’t remember the last time he ate. He’d forgotten to grab anything on his way out this morning and he’s spent the whole day running between lectures. Which means it was probably whatever he had for dinner last night.

“Hey, can I get you anything?” He asks Doyoung as he heads to the fridge. “What do demons even eat?”

“The flesh of the innocent.” Taeyong can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He probably is. Hopefully. 

“Uhh, do you want coco pops or cornflakes because that’s all I’ve got.” Ten had finished all the pasta the last time he had invited himself over.

“No!” Taeyong is pretty sure that Doyoung is pulling his full fiery eyed, fanged demon complete with horns act behind him if the crackling sound and static in the air is anything to go by, but he refuses to turn around and check.

“Okay, edgelord, coco pops it is.”

 

It’s been a week since Doyoung started making Taeyong’s life hell and Ten is starting to cotton onto the fact that something’s going on. 

They’re sitting in the library together, Taeyong taking notes out of a textbook and Ten spinning a pen around his fingers whilst staring out of the window.

“Are you okay?” Ten asks, pen still moving in a blur across his knuckles, looping around each finger. “You’ve been kinda distant lately.”

Taeyong starts slightly, so deep in concentration that he’d forgotten Ten was even there. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just busy, I’ve got too much work and not enough time.”

Ten hums under his breath, not convinced by Taeyong’s excuse. Taeyong hadn’t really expected it to work, he’s a shitty liar at the best of times and Ten’s known him for so long that he can read him better than anyone.

Ten leans forward in his seat “You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not! Swear on my life.” Taeyong closes his textbook, he’s not going to get anything else done now that Ten has gone full interrogation mode on him. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“Ha!” Ten points at him in triumph and Taeyong wonders what on earth Ten managed to pick up on. “That’s an even dumber excuse, you’re definitely hiding something.”

Taeyong doesn’t bother to reply, anything else he says will only dig himself into an even deeper hole. There’s no way he’s telling him the truth either. It was stressful enough trying to explain it to Taeil, and Taeil already knew Doyoung.

“So what is it? Did you get involved with a gang? Find out that you’re actually adopted?” Ten’s eyes go wide. “Have you got a secret boyfriend?”

“Dude, no, what the fuck.” Taeyong splutters “Why would I even bother hiding any of that stuff from you in the first place? Like I said, I’m just busy.”

Ten still doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he sits back in his chair anyway and picks his pen back up. “You’re right,” He says “There’s no point in hiding stuff like that from me, I’d find out eventually anyway.”

Taeyong doesn’t doubt him. Ten is friends with almost everyone and acquaintances with everyone else. His information sources could probably rival that of the FBI’s. One time, Taeyong had mentioned to Ten that maybe, if he put as much brain power into his classes as he did into knowing everything that went down on the university campus, then he wouldn’t be in danger of failing his classes. Ten had just raised an eyebrow at him, “Who says I’m even close to failing?” had been his only response.

“I’m coming over tonight.” Ten says. “We missed game night last week because you had a deadline and I want to beat your ass at Mario Kart.” They usually spend Friday nights playing video games and fighting over who the rightful winner should’ve been. Ten says that Taeyong’s a sore loser and Taeyong is convinced that Ten has found a way to cheat. Sometimes Ten drags Johnny along as well. It’s a familiar part of his routine and one of the few things he actually looks forward to, but last week it had been canceled because Taeyong was busy.

Busy trying to get Doyoung to fuck off back to whatever circle of hell he crawled out of. Not that Ten knows that.

“Is that the only reason you want to come over?” 

“Can’t you just accept that I missed my best friend?” Ten is the picture of fake innocence, Taeyong gives him his best unimpressed look. “Okay okay, I’ve run out of food and I’m too lazy to go buy more.”

Taeyong fights the urge to roll his eyes “Fine, you can come round.”

Ten whoops and throws his hands in the air, over his shoulder Taeyong can see the librarian glaring at them. If she had lasers for eyes, Ten would be dead.

“Is Johnny coming as well?” Taeyong asks.

“Hmmm, probably,” Ten says, shoving his untouched textbooks into his bag. “I’ll text him and ask.”

He grabs his empty coffee cup off the table and gets up to leave, waving goodbye to Taeyong as he does. Taeyong waves back and as he does he remembers that Doyoung is still very much on his ceiling and Taeyong still has no way to get rid of him before the evening.

He’s well and truly fucked.

 

“I have guests coming over,” Taeyong announces to his seemingly empty apartment. He slams the door behind him for effect. “And I want you to stay out of sight the whole time or I’ll tell Taeil.”

No reply. Taeyong walks to his bedroom and kicks the door open. Nothing. The bathroom is empty as well, along with the kitchen. There’s a significant lack of bitchy demons glued to the ceiling. 

“Thank God.” It was kind of rude of Doyoung to leave without saying goodbye or at least leaving a note, but he’s so glad that Doyoung is gone that he can’t find the motivation to be annoyed. With a sigh, he collapses back onto his couch. He can use the hour he allocated to arguing with Doyoung about why Doyoung should stay in Taeyong’s room the whole time Ten was over- and why he definitely _shouldn’t_ come and introduce himself- to take a nap instead.

A spot on the ceiling above his head shimmers and swims around a bit, like heat haze, except its early spring and still cold enough that Taeyong has taken to wearing two jumpers even when he’s inside. He must be more tired than he thought, that or it’s the light playing tricks on him.

He rubs his eyes hard enough to make his vision go fuzzy and then blinks several times to clear it. Doyoung grins back at him.

Taeyong does the logical thing that anyone in his situation would do and screams and falls sideways off the couch.

“Where the _hell_ did you come from?” He asks when his heart no longer feels like it’s about to rip it’s way out of his chest.

“I was there the whole time.” Doyoung says smugly.

“What are you? A fucking chameleon?”

“No, I was invisible, there’s a difference.” Doyoung moves across the ceiling to sit in the corner. He has a weird thing about corners. “I can only do it when I’m holding my breath though, so it isn’t very useful. Apart from for scaring people- that was awesome by the way, your face was so funny.”

“You better find another way to make yourself unseen because my friends are coming over soon and I don’t want you to scare them.” Taeyong gets up off the floor and leans on the arm of the couch.

“Can’t I meet them?” Doyoung whines, “I’m going mad staying in here the whole day, this dimension is so boring.”

He’s pouting like a child who’s been told he can’t have a cookie and for once his eyes don’t have the weird shine that hints at him having a secret agenda. There’s a tail tucked around his legs like a cat- that’s a new one. So far Doyoung has had wings, a full mouth of fangs, and on one memorable occasion horns, but never a tail.

“You can’t meet them and that’s final.” Taeyong crosses his arms in a failed attempt to look intimidating. “I’m not arguing with you about this.”

Doyoung frowns and starts scraping his claws across the ceiling- he’s claimed before that he does it to sharpen them, but Taeyong _knows_ that Doyoung just does it to annoy him.

“Is it because you’re ashamed of me?” Doyoung asks, dragging his claws across the ceiling particularly hard so that they make a discordant shrieking sound.

Taeyong throws his hands up in exasperation “Why would- you’re unbelievable. Piss off already before Ten gets here.”

Grumbling under his breath, Doyoung slinks across the ceiling and into Taeyong’s room. No doubt cursing out Taeyong and his future children and his future children’s children. Why do demons have to be melodramatic about everything? The door clicks shut behind him and Taeyong sighs and drags his hands down his face. Hopefully, this will be over soon.

 

He has just about enough time to tidy away some of the mugs and bowls on the side and shove them into the sink before Ten bursts through his front door, kicking off his shoes like he’s the one who lives there. 

Ten lives two floors above Taeyong and his apartment is practically identical right down to the leak underneath the kitchen sink and the creaky floorboards in the halls, but for some reason Ten decided at the start of the year that Taeyong’s apartment was superior and therefore, he was going to spend as much time as he possibly could there before Taeyong kicked him out.

There’s no reason behind it at all, at least not one that Taeyong can pinpoint. He has a feeling it might purely be down to the fact that Taeyong doesn’t have a roommate, but he’s met Ten’s roommate on several occasions and he’s a literal angel. Or at least as close as you’d ever find to one.

“What’s up?” Ten asks as he digs through Taeyong’s cupboards.

“Nothing much,” Taeyong says “I was just tidying when you got here.”

Ten lets out a yell of victory and pulls out a tube of oreos that Taeyong had forgotten he even had. 

“Your life is so _boring_. You need to get out more.” Ten vaults over the back of the couch and picks the remote “Later though, right now I’m going to beat you at Mario Kart. You’re going down, old man.”

“I’m less than a year older than you!” Taeyong protests, but he’s laughing even as he says it. 

“It’s all about your mentality,” Ten insists. He drums his hands on the ‘coffee table’ as he waits for the game to load. “You’re already a fifty year old with a house and car and a boring nine to five job. Except you have none of those things and you’re still a student.”

“I get it, I get it,” Taeyong sits on the floor next to Ten’s feet “I’m boring, thank you for reminding me.”

“I never said that.” Ten taps him on the head with his controller. “If you were boring I wouldn’t be friends with you.”

Ten ends up winning at Mario Kart as he always does. He also manages to trample Taeyong into the dust in the four rematches that Taeyong insists on because there’s _no way_ that Ten can win every time. Statistically, it should be impossible.

“See,” Ten says, his eyes fixed on the screen as he casually boots Taeyong sideways off the edge of Rainbow Road. “You’re a shitty loser.” 

Maybe Ten’s a demon. It would definitely, to use Taeil’s words, explain some things.

 

It takes a mix of bribery, blackmail, and Taeyong threatening to phone Johnny and get him to physically drag Ten out the door to get Ten to leave. Not that Taeyong really minds, it’s nice spending time with Ten, but sadly, as he reminds Ten, not all of them can survive on three hours of sleep and unlike Ten, he wasn’t smart enough to only pick classes that started after midday.

Taeyong collapses into bed and crawls under the covers without bothering to change his clothes. He’s too tired for it to matter to him. The world could crumble to ash and fire around him and he probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid. That’s how tired he is. All he wants to do is sleep for the next ten hours, maybe a whole day. Doyoung however, has no intentions of honouring this wish.

“You never answered me earlier,” He says. His face is directly above Taeyong’s and there’s a flame dancing in the palm of his hand lighting up the room. Do demons have no concept of personal space? “Are you ashamed of me?”

Taeyong sighs inwardly and rubs his eyes to try and make his brain function enough to form a sentence.

“No, I’m not.” Close enough.

“Then why wouldn’t you let me meet your friend?” Doyoung is whining and it’s rather pathetic coming from a demon who- if you believed what he claimed- could summon a hurricane as easily as turning a page in a book.

“Are you- are we seriously arguing about this now.” Taeyong sits up. His face is uncomfortably close to Doyoung’s, but it feels less awkward than trying to talk to him lying down. “You do realise that you’re a _demon,_ right? That’s kinda difficult to explain to people.”

“Taeil was fine with it, you’re fine with it.” Doyoung points out. “It’s really not that hard to explain.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice.” Taeyong shoots back “Leave me alone I’m trying to sleep. Don’t you demons do that?”

“Only once a month. You humans are so weak.”

“Thanks for the reminder. Now shut the hell up.” 

The fire flickers out and Taeyong’s room is plunged back into darkness. 

 

Having Doyoung on his ceiling is kind of like having a roommate again. Taeyong hates it.

Gone are his days of being a hermit and spending what little free time he has wrapped in a blanket watching Netflix. Doyoung likes to hang over Taeyong’s shoulder and ask endless questions about whatever he’s watching, or what he’s doing, or what the essay he’s writing is about. It’s annoying to the point that going outside for any reason at all seems preferable.

But he can’t even leave his own house without Doyoung nagging him about what he’s wearing. He seems intent on giving Taeyong fashion advice regardless of whether or not Taeyong asked for it. It would be helpful, sometimes, maybe, if most of Doyoung’s concept of what was stylish wasn’t stuck in the 19th century.

“Are you really wearing that?” Doyoung has been chilling above the door frame for the last twenty minutes watching Taeyong dash around in a panic trying to get ready to leave.

Taeyong looks down at his outfit, a slightly crumpled green tshirt and mostly clean jeans. It looks fine.

“Yeah?” 

Doyoung raises an eyebrow at him in disdain. “That shirt should be burned.” 

“Well, I like it.” Taeyong says “And unless you’re planning on burning it while it’s still on me there’s nothing you can do to get me to not wear it.”

Doyoung’s face lights up and Taeyong legs it out the front door as quickly as possible.

He’s almost but not quite late to his first class; he collapses into a spare seat next to Ten seconds before the professor walks in. Ten looks up at him from whatever he’s scribbling on the front of his notepad and wrinkles his nose.

“That’s the ugliest fucking shirt I’ve ever seen.”

“I think it suits me.” Taeyong squints down at his chest. Sure, it’s a bit of a weird colour, but it’s comfy.

Ten snorts “And I think you need to get your glasses prescription changed.” He turns his attention to the front of the room and Taeyong sighs inwardly. There’s no way he’s ever letting Ten and Doyoung within a five metre radius of each other.

 

The universe hates Taeyong. If the world is a simulation, then whoever is responsible for running it is having the time of their lives laughing at him right now. Either that or everything in existence is conspiring against him.

It goes something like this: It’s Friday evening, two weeks and three days since Doyoung summoned a portal into Taeyong’s apartment and subsequently got stuck on the ceiling. Taeyong has just gotten back from his shift at the cafe a few blocks away and he’s pretty sure he’s got coffee grounds stuck in his hair and there’s table polish all over his jeans from where the container had been leaking. He looks- and feels- like a mess.

Doyoung seems adept at finding any possible way to annoy him. Currently he’s scrawling runes in felt tip pen around the edge of the invisible barrier that’s keeping him trapped and chattering to Taeyong the whole time. Something about the music class he’d been in with Taeil last year? Taeyong isn’t paying much attention; he feels as if his brain has shut down on him, so he just hums and nods his head in what seems like the appropriate places as he clatters around the kitchen trying to make himself a sandwich without accidentally injuring himself with a butter knife. It’s harder than it sounds.

At some point, Doyoung’s chattering turns into violent swearing in several languages, most of which Taeyong is unfamiliar with, and he throws the pen across the room with a surprising amount of power. It knocks a vase of dead flowers off the side and sends it crashing into the ground. Taeyong sighs and tunes it out; as long as Doyoung is living here he can clean up his own fucking mess. Yesterday he’d tried some spell that had backfired and shattered the kitchen table, Taeyong had yelled at him for close to twenty minutes before he repaired it with _another_ spell that had left the flat smelling like sulfur for the next two hours.

Today, Taeyong doesn’t bother saying anything. He has the insistent, nagging feeling that he’s forgotten something important and no matter how hard he tries to pinpoint what it is, he can’t come up with anything. He hasn’t lost his phone, he’s checked three times and he definitely doesn’t have any essays due within the next 24 hours, he hasn’t left the oven on and there aren’t any unread texts he needs to reply to.

He starts running through his whole day in his head in an attempt to remember what it is he’s forgetting- that is if there is anything. Doyoung starts sharpening his claws on the ceiling again. The door is flung open with a resounding bang and Johnny bursts in with Ten right behind him.

Fuck.

 _That’s_ what he was forgetting.


	2. shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the fuck,” Ten says eventually, after staring intently at Doyoung for way longer than can be considered polite, no matter which circle of hell you happen to come from. “You never told us you got a roommate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is about 25% filler, 50% set up for the actual plot and 25% plot. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to update but sometimes life comes at you fast. the chapter name means absolutely nothing i just called it shine because i listened to shine by pentagon on repeat while i wrote the majority of this.

Several things happen at once. Doyoung screeches in surprise and his wings phase into existence with a snap, knocking a photograph off the wall. Taeyong fights the urge to stab himself in the eye with the butter knife. Ten and Johnny just stand there and stare.

“What the fuck,” Ten says eventually, after staring intently at Doyoung for way longer than can be considered polite, no matter which circle of hell you happen to come from. “You never told us you got a roommate.”

“You’re not going to say anything about how he has wings or how he’s _upside down on the ceiling_?” Taeyong asks incredulously.

Ten shoots him a glare “I was getting to that, I was trying not to be rude.” He frowns up at Doyoung “Why do you have wings? Is it some sort of cosplay thing?”

Taeyong has to stop himself from snorting at the outraged look on Doyoung’s face.

“How _dare_ you,” Doyoung sounds so livid that Taeyong is surprised he isn’t literally spitting acid.

Ten shrugs “Sorry dude, if they aren’t a cosplay thing then what are they?”

“They’re real.” Doyoung stretches them out for full effect and flaps them slightly, the downdraught blows Taeyong’s hair into his eyes and he pushes it away with a fed up sigh. Stupid demons and their stupid theatrics.

“That’s so cool! What are you?” There are stars in Ten’s eyes and he looks so in awe that Taeyong wants to forcibly remove him from the room before this can get any further.

Johnny unfreezes and stops staring open-mouthed at Doyoung long enough to punch Ten in the arm. “That isn’t the sort of thing you can just _ask_ people.”

“But he isn’t a person, he has wings.”

“ _Maybe_ he’s a person with wings.”

How are his friends this dumb? Taeyong runs his hands down his face and briefly reconsiders every decision he’s ever made that somehow lead to him standing there at that moment.

“I’m a demon.” Doyoung cuts in, his tongue running across teeth which have _definitely_ gotten sharper since the last time Taeyong looked. Not that he made a habit of looking at Doyoung’s mouth, or Doyoung in general, not unless he had to.

“That’s so fucking cool.” Ten looks as if someone just told him that exams were canceled for that semester and he also just inherited twenty million dollars. With a smug grin, Doyoung tucks his wings into his back and they disappear with a snap.

However, Johnny looks much less convinced. “Prove it.” He says arms crossed over his chest. _Why do chemistry majors have to be so skeptical?_ Taeyong laments to himself.

The air in the apartment begins to crackle with energy and the hairs on Taeyong’s arms stand on end. Light seeps out of the room until it feels like twilight and the darker it gets, the more Doyoung seems to glow, sparks flying off him like shooting stars. 

Taeyong grabs a spatula off the side and brandishes it in Doyoung’s face in a way he hopes comes off as threatening. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

The lights return to normal, the sparks vanish and Doyoung pouts at him. Taeyong waves the spatula again to make sure he’s got his point across.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport, TY.” Ten whines. Great, now he’s pouting as well. Johnny stands silently behind him, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.

“No! I’m not having him wreck my home trying to put on an indoor fireworks display.” Taeyong shoots back, pointing the spatula at Ten who grumbles something under his breath that Taeyong can’t hear, but Doyoung seems to find hilarious if his obnoxious snickering is anything to go by. 

Johnny snaps out of his trance and slaps himself hard on the cheek before pinching himself on his arm “Why aren’t I waking up?”

“Because sadly this isn’t a dream.” Taeyong says drily.

Ten rolls his sleeve up and flexes his hand. “I can try hitting you if you want.” Johnny balks at the idea, shaking his head and stepping away from Ten and out of arm's reach.

The rest of the evening goes like this: Ten decides that Doyoung is his new best friend and starts badgering him about every possible detail about magic and dimensions and weird freaky demon business. After being trapped with Taeyong’s stubborn silence for the better part of a month, Doyoung is happy to comply and he tells Ten story after story about demonic exploits, everyone he’d ever met, and just about his everything that’s ever happened in his entire life (and he’s a demon, he’s had a long life.). Ten listens intently to everything he says to the point where Taeyong wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled out his laptop and started taking notes.

After ten minutes of pacing and seventeen more of intense googling, Johnny declares that this whole situation is “Too fucking weird.” and lies face down on the couch. Taeyong isn’t sure if he’s awake or not and he doesn’t want to ask. To be fair, Taeyong agrees with Johnny, but he’s had more time to get used to everything and the absurdity of it all has decreased over time. 

Somewhere between Doyoung setting fire to his kitchen doing fuck knows what (he’s too afraid to ask) and the amount of magic in the apartment frying the wifi router, Taeyong has grown used to having Doyoung around. It’s a horrifying thing to realise and he immediately shoves it out of the way into his list of things to mull over later (read: never)

Afternoon turns to evening and the sky fades from aquamarine to washed-out lilac and Johnny wakes up and decides he has more important places to be. He leaves, dragging Ten by the collar of his shirt as Ten tries to shout his phone number.

“Do you even have a phone?” Taeyong asks, perched cross legged on the arm of the sofa.

“Of course I do, this is the 21st century. What do you take me for?” 

Taeyong shrugs one shoulder lazily, “I wasn’t sure how things work where you come from.” The sort of conversation they’re having now would normally set him on edge, make him feel nervous and twitchy as if every muscle in his body is eager to get away. But today, weirdly, he feels as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders and everything seems tolerable. Even Doyoung’s snide comments and raised eyebrows and way of acting as if Taeyong knows nothing.

“Where I come from,” Doyoung snorts, Taeyong isn’t exactly sure what he’s finding funny. “Isn’t much different from this. How do you think humans came up with half of what they have? You're too stupid to have thought of it all yourselves, that's for sure." Taeyong might feel insulted if what Doyoung was saying didn't make as much sense as it did.

A silence falls after that, going on for just long enough for it to become uncomfortable.

“I’ve been wondering,” Taeyong shifts slightly in his seat and looks Doyoung in the eyes. “How come your hair stays flat on your head? Like, you’re upside down, but your hair doesn’t _look_ like it’s upside down. You look like someone photoshopped you onto my ceiling.”

“Magic.” Doyoung replies, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

 

The next day goes the same as any others. It’s remarkably unremarkable and although Taeyong doesn’t know why he’s slightly disappointed. For some reason, he was convinced that _something_ would be different once this secret was no longer his alone to keep. But, instead it’s just a normal Saturday and it’s boring.

His shift finishes early because exams aren’t for another month and so everyone is making the most of the last of their freedom before they have to buckle down and pull all nighters to get through a whole year's worth of work in a couple of days; and so the cafe is almost empty to the point where staying open until late is a waste of money. Clouds cover the sky with a blanket of grey and the air is mild- neither hot nor cold without the faintest hint of a breeze.

The door of his apartment is already unlocked when he gets back, but it doesn’t faze him, Doyoung is more than capable of banishing any potential robbers to the fiery depths of hell. What he doesn’t expect to see is Ten sitting on his couch talking to Doyoung and half of Taeyong’s clothes strewn across the floor, completely ripped to shreds.

“What the _fuck_ happened?” In the one day that Ten and Doyoung have known each other they’ve managed to cause more chaos that in all the time Taeyong as known either of them separately and Taeyong would be lying if he said he wasn’t pissed.

“A cat got in,” Ten says, eyes wide and if Taeyong hadn’t known him for the best part of his life and didn’t live on the 6th floor, there’s a chance he might think Ten is being sincere. “It was out of control, must have been rabid or something. Went right through your cupboard and tore almost everything. We couldn’t stop it.”

From where he’s standing, Taeyong can see a pair of jeans that Ten has called an abomination on multiple occasions, the coat that Doyoung had on one memorable occasion compared to something that a 16th century peasant would wear, and the infamous ‘ugly’ green t-shirt. All completely ruined by claw marks far too big to belong to a cat. On the ceiling, Doyoung picks a neon green thread out of his claws with a satisfied smirk.

The problem with Ten and Doyoung combined- Taeyong realises later- is that Ten, although he’d never admit it, has the mind of an evil genius, but not has the energy or the conviction to see and of his mad ideas through. Doyoung on the other hand, knows no fear, pain, or regret and has no problem helping Ten achieve even his most questionable goals.

“It’s a shame honestly,” Ten smiles at Taeyong and it’s like looking at the sun. If the sun happened to be several centimetres shorter than Taeyong with a bad attitude. “I guess you’ll have to come shopping with me to get some new stuff to replace it.”

Taeyong groans and hits his head on the wall.

 

It’s the weird twilight point between midnight and 1am when nothing feels quite real and the world feels like it’s asleep, when the bell on Taeyong’s door rings. He gets up from the table, abandoning his essay mid sentence and opens the door. 

The thing about Taeil is that often when he says things, he doesn’t actually mean them. He’s just looking for a way to get out of having any involvement in the latest dumb thing his friends have got themselves stuck neck deep in and he’s willing to lie through his teeth to avoid having to deal with it. Taeil’s excuses are part bullshit, part promising to do things he’ll never get around to, and part general vagueness.

So, when it turns out that Taeil does, in fact, know a guy who knows a guy who knows something about demon magic, Taeyong is so shocked that he’s pretty sure his mouth is hanging open to the point where he looks like a modern recreation of The Scream.

It doesn’t help that ‘the guy’ is his friend and roommate from freshman year. Because apparently, Taeyong has a talent for attracting weird demonic entities and their associates. History has a way of repeating itself, he thinks to himself, and judging by the puzzled look Taeil gives him he must have said it out loud.

“Hey there handsome.” Yuta flashes Taeyong a winning smile and waves at him. Beside him, Taeil sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Taeyong, this is the guy I said I knew. He might be able to help.”

“We know each other already.” Taeyong says, his eyes never leaving Yuta’s. Sure they’ve barely talked in the last few months what with their majors being worlds apart and their friend groups barely overlapping, but after living in the same room as someone for a whole year it’s kinda difficult to forget them.

“Oh, cool.” Taeil doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s cool, he sounds like he thinks it’s about as interesting as watching paint dry.

“No offense,” Taeyong fixes Yuta with his best pissed off glare (Ten once said it made him look like an angry puppy, but whatever, it’s come a long way since then.) “But what the fuck do you know about magic.”

“I’m half demon.” Yuta’s grin grows wider and there’s something in it that Taeyong can’t quite read.

Taeyong frowns in confusion, “I thought you were Japanese?” If Taeil had looked fed up before, now he looks completely exasperated and ready to take off and leave Taeyong with a demon stuck to his ceiling indefinitely.

“Can you invite us in already,” He sighs, rubbing his temples as if he has a headache. To be fair, he probably does. “So that we don’t have to have this conversation in a corridor where anyone could hear.”

 

“Oh, shit right, of course, come in.” Taeyong steps away from the doorway and gestures awkwardly to the room behind him.

Yuta lets out a low whistle, “Nice place you’ve got,” He’s completely relaxed, hands in his pockets standing in the centre of the room like he owns the place, while Taeyong is so nervous that he feels like his heart is a jackhammer trying to break through his ribs and he hates Yuta for it. “So, why am I here?”

Taeyong spins around to face Taeil “You didn’t tell him?” He hisses.

“I told him enough to get him here, I figured it’d be easier to just show him.” He says with a shrug and Taeyong can’t really argue with that when he’d done exactly the same thing with Taeil. 

“Follow me.” Taeyong says to Yuta and then heads towards the kitchen without waiting for Yuta’s reply.

When they walk in, Doyoung is sitting cross-legged on the ceiling sharpening his nails, or maybe plotting Taeyong’s murder? Taeyong isn’t sure and he doesn’t really want to find out. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Or at least a slightly better option. Taeyong points at him, not bothering to say anything because as far as he’s concerned he’s passed over the metaphorical baton of having to be the one who explains all this and now it’s Doyoung’s problem. So, he just stretches his arm out and points at Doyoung and leaves the rest to happen however it happens.

Yuta’s eyes follow Taeyong’s finger up to the ceiling. He blinks several times, tilts his head to one side as if he’s trying to look at Doyoung the right way up and then starts laughing, his whole body shaking. Doyoung starts at the sudden noise and then fixes Yuta with a glare that’s all steel knives and flames hotter than the sun. Somehow, Yuta seems to be oblivious and he keeps laughing, gasping for breath with tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. Sure, the situation is kinda funny from some angles, but it’s not _this_ funny.

“Laugh it up, Nakamoto,” Doyoung spits out, voice icy “When I get down from here I can assure you, you won’t find any of this funny anymore.”

Yuta just laughs harder, bent almost in half with his arms wrapped around his stomach. Eventually, he calms down and straightens up, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand “Being threatened by you is like being threatened by an angry bunny,” He tells Doyoung, still snickering slightly “Only thing is, I’m more likely to be scared of the rabbit.”

 

“Do you guys already know each other?” Taeyong asks, his head is spinning slightly.

“Unfortunately.” Doyoung replies dryly.

“Aww, come on Doyoung, you know you love me really.”

“Don’t fucking push it, Nakamoto.” Doyoung spits back, his mouth twisted into an almost snarl.

“Guys can you quit it, please,” Taeil pipes up from the doorway and Doyoung and Yuta both whip around with matching guilty expressions on their faces. If Taeyong wasn’t worried about them potentially trying to murder each other in his kitchen, he might find it amusing. 

“This isn’t over,” Doyoung says to Yuta, and Taeyong rolls his eyes so hard that Taeil will tell him later that it looked as if they were about to fall out of his head. Yuta blows Doyoung a kiss in response.

“So, what’s the issue?” Finally, they’re getting somewhere.

Doyoung doesn’t say anything, instead, he stares pointedly at a spot on the opposite side of the room to Yuta and ignores him. Yuta just continues to stare Doyoung down, foot tapping out a staccato rhythm on the tiled floor as he waits. From experience, Taeyong knows that Doyoung is ridiculously stubborn and Yuta is equally so. This waiting game could stretch on into the next week if someone doesn’t do something.

“He’s stuck to the ceiling.” Taeyong cuts in “He fucked up the spell he used to summon the portal and now he can’t get down.”

“First of all, it’s a gateway, not a portal. Secondly, I didn’t fuck it up, this is all Donghyuck’s fault.” Doyoung sounds like a petulant child.

“Stop being so pedantic, you literally called it a portal before.” Taeyong snaps back. Usually, he likes to think he’s above being petty like this, but Doyoung manages to fray his nerves to the point where he can’t stop himself.

“Guys, please.” Taeil pleads and Taeyong jumps slightly because he’d forgotten that he was still there.

Yuta hums slightly under his breath and he regards Doyoung, he seems to be having a debate with himself in his head. “I’ll need to get in contact with Donghyuck to find out what he did if he even did anything. I think I can fix it once I know.” 

“Thank god.” Taeyong doesn’t think he says it loud enough for Doyoung to hear, but something in his expression twists anyway, in a way that couldn’t be coincidental.

“It’ll take time though,” Yuta says “Spells like these ones are unpredictable and a bitch to undo. Everything has to be perfect or they’ll backfire even worse than before.”

“Are you really the best person for the job then, Nakamoto?” Doyoung asks. His voice lacks most of the venom that had laced it before and he just sounds tired.

Yuta runs his hands through his hair “No offense, but what other choices do you have?” Taeyong has to admit he has a point there. “If you would prefer, I could always tell Him.”

Doyoung blanches at that, colour seeping from him until he resembles an ancient photograph. “Don’t you fucking dare.” He spits out every word like they burn his mouth, but it isn’t from anger, instead, it’s fear causing his voice to waver and his knuckles to turn white as he curls his hands into tight fists.

Curiosity bubbling in his chest, Taeyong takes note of his reaction. Who could Doyoung possibly be so afraid of?

“Fine,” Yuta sighs “I won’t. But you’ll owe me one for this.”

“Anything.” Doyoung sounds as if he regrets it the second it slips from his lips.

“Okay, I’ll see you again in the morning. I’m too fucking tired to start figuring this out now.” Yuta nods his head at Doyoung and blows a kiss at Taeyong before leaving, Taeil trailing behind him.

Taeyong leans back against the wall, exhaustion suddenly hitting him like a crashing wave. The apartment is eerily silent without Yuta and Doyoung makes no move to fill the silence with meaningless chatter like he normally does.

“Do you know all my friends?” Taeyong eventually asks, when the quiet stillness of the room is beginning to make his skin itch.

“No, I don’t think so,” Doyoung replies and there’s a hint of his usual smile reappearing in the corners of his eyes. “Not unless you know Sicheng?” Taeyong shakes his head at that. The name doesn’t ring a bell.

“You should get some sleep, you really don’t want to have to deal with my brother when you’re tired. Or ever really.”

“He can’t be any worse than you,” Taeyong jokes, he thinks the humour is lost somewhere in the heavy monotone of his too tired voice. “Goodnight Doyoung.”

“Goodnight Taeyong.”

 

Donghyuck barrels into Taeyong’s apartment at 10am the following morning in a whirlwind of red hair and loud yelling. He phases straight through the front door without waiting for Taeyong to open it, because he’s a demon and doors are a mortal invention created purely to inconvenience him. At least that’s what tells Taeyong. A few moments later, Yuta lets himself in through the front door because unlike Donghyuck, he at least pretends to have some basic human decency.

“Brother dearest,” Donghyuck calls out as he dances through the apartment. His hair is stuck up on end as if he’s been electrocuted and he has an impish smile on his face. In some ways, he looks impossibly young and innocent, but the dark eyeliner smudged around his eyes and the sharp, precise way in which he moves hint at something more.

Doyoung skitters across the ceiling until he’s directly above Donghyuck who tilts his head back to look Doyoung in the eyes. Hands in his pockets and grin stretching even wider.

“You little _brat_.” Doyoung lunges at Donghyuck, but Donghyuck spins out of his reach, his laughter loud and playful. 

“You’re still stuck up there? Seriously?” He giggles and Doyoung curses at him in a language that sounds like grating metal and makes Taeyong’s head feel like it’s about to explode.

“Now, that’s not a very nice thing to say to the person who’s going to get you down, is it?” Donghyuck perches on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs so that his feet hit repeatedly into the cupboard under him.

Doyoung’s eyes cloud over with black like ink spilled across paper, and he throws a ball of energy straight at Donghyuck’s head. Hardly bothered, Donghyuck deflects it with a wave of his hand sending it flying towards Yuta who barely manages to duck out of the way at the last second. It hits the wall behind him with a loud crack and a cloud of smoke. Taeyong looks at the scorch mark it leaves behind with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s going to be a bitch to cover that up.

“Fucking watch it!” Yuta yells “Keep your family arguments away from me and my mortal ass.” Donghyuck shrugs with one shoulder and sticks his tongue out at Yuta before addressing Taeyong.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” He says to Taeyong. “I’m Donghyuck.”

“I know.” Taeyong replies. 

“Oooo he _knows_ <” Donghyuck turns his head to face Doyoung. “What did you tell him? Only good things I hope.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Doyoung snorts.

“Be nice or I’ll leave you stuck up there forever.” He wags a finger at Doyoung like a parent scolding a petulant child. The whole scene looks vaguely hilarious, Taeyong thinks, like the setup of a bad low budget comedy movie.

Donghyuck is teenage rebellion personified, dressed in all black with more rips in his jeans than Taeyong can be bothered to count and Doyoung looks, if he’s being honest, like a TA with his button-down shirt and neat hair. It’s hard to see any resemblance between them, but it’s there in the set of their jaws, the way they hold their heads high, and how their words strike harder than daggers.

“What did you even do to get me stuck up here?” Doyoung asks, his face is pinched into a frown and Taeyong is glad that he’s not the one on the receiving end of it.

“Nothing much. Just switched a couple of runes around. You really should pay more attention to your surroundings.” Donghyuck picks an apple out of the bowl on the side and bites into it before pulling a face and putting it back. “Mortal food is so weird.”

“You would think that the last thousand years would’ve taught you at least some manners.” Doyoung says icily. 

“Can you please hurry up and get this over with,” Yuta cuts in, checking his watch impatiently “I kind of have somewhere to be soon.”

“Of course, I don’t exactly want to be spending quality time with my lovely brother.” Donghyuck flashes Doyoung a smile that reminds Taeyong of a hungry wolf. “This shouldn’t hurt, much.”

Donghyuck spreads his arms, raising them slightly above his head like a conductor. His eyes begin to glow, dark irises swallowed whole by harsh white light. It throws the rest of his face into a maze of shadow and at that moment he looks as much a creature of heaven as a creature of hell. Around him, flames dance into existence, spinning through the air in a dizzying spiral before vanishing as quickly as they came to be.

The air around him wavers like a mirage as he brings his hands together in a fluid motion. Energy ripples out like a shockwave, Taeyong stumbles back as it passes through him, he can feel it fizzing through his veins like electricity through a copper wire. When it hits Doyoung it envelops him in a cloud of sunset orange and he hangs suspended in the air for a split second before crashing unceremoniously into the floor with a sickening thud.

Like a switch has been turned off, the light vanishes from Donghyuck’s eyes and he stumbles slightly, his face noticeably paler than it had been five minutes before. 

"Huh," Yuta has a slightly dumbfounded look on his face "Was it really that easy all along?"

"Not all of us are awful at magic. I think the talent might have skipped a generation in my brother's case."

Doyoung gets up off the floor, his left arm bent at an unnatural angle “I thought you said that wasn’t going to hurt.” He hisses, pain twisting his face

Donghyuck shrugs “I meant for me. It’ll heal in a moment anyway.”

Sure enough, the pain is beginning to disappear from Doyoung’s expression and as Taeyong watches his arm clicks straight again with a quiet snap. He flexes his hand a couple of times and sticks his middle finger up a Donghyuck “Good to see it still works.” he says.

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, unimpressed “All these years and you still haven’t developed a decent sense of humour. Anyway, my job here is done, I should be getting home. Just wait until I tell Jaehyun about this-”

“You won’t if you want to be alive to see the next millennium.” Is all Doyoung says in reply.

Taeyong rolls his eyes. Are all demons this petty? “At least thank him. He did manage to unstick you.”

“Yes, _after he got me stuck to the ceiling in the first place,_ ” Taeyong glares at him pointedly “Fine. Thank you Donghyuck.” It sounds forced and awkward and like it’s the last thing he wants to say, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“No problem, brother dearest.” There’s a mocking edge to his voice. He walks towards the door and then stops with his hand on the handle. “I’ll tell Father that you said hello.”

Doyoung grimaces “Please do.”

And then Donghyuck is gone, leaving behind only the faint smell of oranges and the metallic tang of fresh magic.

“I have to say,” Yuta says from the corner “That this has been fascinating, but I have to go now as well. Sadly econ classes wait for no man, beast, or half demon.” 

“Thanks for your help.” Doyoung says and this time he sounds like he almost means it.

Finally, only Doyoung and Taeyong are left, standing in the centre of the room next to the coffee table that isn’t a table.

“I guess this is goodbye.” Taeyong could almost say he feels sad about it. Living alone again is going to take some getting used to.

“About that,” Doyoung scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, his eyes fixed on the floor “I’m kinda still stuck in this world. For now at least, and I don’t exactly have anywhere else to go.”

Taeyong sits down on the edge of the sofa and takes a deep breath “What do you mean you’re _still_ stuck?”

“Gateways between worlds can only be summoned at certain places at certain times of the month,” Doyoung explains, voice uncharacteristically quiet “It depends on the moon’s cycle.”

 

“So what you’re saying is that you have to wait until the moon's in the right place before you can summon another gateway?” Taeyong asks “But earlier Donghyuck said he was going home, did he just mean it metaphorically or something.”

 

“No, he meant it literally,” Doyoung says with a sigh “That kid has friends in high places, not to mention he’s probably more powerful than I’ll ever be. He won’t help me though, if that’s what you’re hoping, he doesn’t like revealing how he gets around. Probably because he knows someone will put a stop to it.”

“You can stay here until you can get home,” It probably isn’t the smartest idea Taeyong’s ever had, but he’d feel bad kicking Doyoung out and after all, he’s been here long enough, what difference is another week or so going to make? “But no funny demon business in this apartment. If you want to do any weird rituals or meet any of your other demon friends you can find somewhere else to do it.”

Doyoung smiles and it's small and sincere and makes Taeyong’s heart skip several beats. Not that he’d ever admit it “Thank you.” He says for the third time in the last half hour.

“I have a class in twenty minutes,” He gets up and shoves his laptop into his bag before turning back to Doyoung “Do you want to stay here or are you going out as well?”

“There’s no way I’m staying here,” Doyoung says immediately, jumping to his feet “No offense, it’s nice here and everything, but I’ve been trapped in there for so long that I’m about to lose it.”

 

The weather is surprisingly nice for early spring, sun shining down through cotton ball clouds, cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom on the trees and the odd petal floats through the air on the breeze.

When they first get out of the building, Doyoung stops for a second on the pavement with his eyes closed and lets the sun soak into his skin. If Taeyong was being honest, he’d admit that Doyoung looked ethereal, so beautiful that it makes his chest hurt, but instead, he takes that thought and shoves it into a dusty corner of his brain where it won’t bother him anymore.

As they walk, Doyoung tells Taeyong about the time he spent at the university last year. It’s mostly mundane stuff like group projects gone catastrophically wrong and from anyone else it would be boring to listen to, but Doyoung has a way of talking when he isn’t insulting people that makes Taeyong hang onto his every word. Or maybe it’s just Doyoung.

They reach the university’s main campus too fast for Taeyong’s liking. Doyoung pulls out his phone and reads something on it before shoving it back into his pocket “I’m going to go meet Sicheng,” He says, and Taeyong recognises the name, but doesn’t have a face to match it to “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, cool.” Taeyong says “I probably won’t be home until after 10, I’m working the closing shift tonight.” It occurs to him later that he doesn’t owe Doyoung an explanation, it isn’t like they’re friends.

“Long time no see, Doyoung,” Taeyong jumps at the sudden voice as a shadow peels away from the throng of students rushing to classes and glides up to stand next to them.

“Jungwoo.” Doyoung’s shoulders are stiff and the name falls from his mouth like an icicle.

“Aww, don’t be like that,” The boy- Jungwoo- says, nudging Doyoung’s side “I haven’t seen you recently.” 

“I wonder why that is.” Everything about Doyoung’s posture is uncomfortable from the way his hands are clenched into fists to the rigidness of his entire body. He looks like he wants to put as much difference between himself and Jungwoo as possible.

“I’ve missed you.” Jungwoo says solemnly and Taeyong tears his eyes away Doyoung to properly look at Jungwoo. 

His eyes are dark, midnight black with flakes of fools gold that glitter in the early afternoon light, framed by long eyelashes. His features are soft but beautiful. High cheekbones and soft lips. Delicate, like they’ve been molded from crystal. His hair is pure silver and it catches the light in a cascade that falls down onto his forehead. There’s something wild in his features too, a glint in his eyes and teeth too sharp to be human. Elegant and serene, but deadly, like a knife forged from precious metals.

Something about him steals the air from Taeyong’s lungs and he doesn’t realise he’s staring until Jungwoo’s attention switches to him like a hawk honing in on its prey “And who’s this?” He asks, voice soft and melodic. Taeyong takes a step towards him before he can stop himself.

“No one.” Doyoung snaps and Taeyong is knocked forcefully out of his trance by the venom in Doyoung’s voice.

“Don’t be a spoilsport,” Jungwoo says and although his voice is still gentle, anger is beginning to seep into it at the edges “I just wanted to have some fun.”

“Find someone else.” Doyoung's tone is final and Jungwoo pouts, but steps back.

“I’ll see you around. Goodbye Doyoung, Taeyong.” And with that, he melts back into the crowd as silently as he had appeared. Only later, when he gets home, will Taeyong realise that he never told Jungwoo his name.

“Who was that?” He asks.

“It’s not important. Don’t bother with him.” Is all he gets from Doyoung who seems to have closed up. Stone walls raised up high around himself. Taeyong hardly recognises him as the Doyoung he knows.

“But-”

“You should get to class. You’re going to be late.” Doyoung says and then turns on his heel and leaves.

What the fuck was all that about? Taeyong wonders to himself as he watches Doyoung disappear around a corner. He’d never heard mention of any Jungwoo before, not in any of the stories Doyoung had told Ten, not in anything Taeil or Yuta had ever said. He wasn’t a demon either, as far as Taeyong could tell from his limited experience with the supernatural, there was something more feral about Jungwoo. Something more dangerous. 

He slips into class just as the professor begins taking attendance and collapses into the seat beside Ten who gives him a curious glance but doesn’t say anything. “I’ll explain later.” Taeyong whispers and Ten nods and turns back to face the front and Taeyong does the same.

 

Two rows in front of him, he catches sight of a familiar flash of bright red hair and Donghyuck turns to wave at him as if he can feel Taeyong’s eyes on the back of his head. Taeyong blinks several times and rubs his eyes, but Donghyuck doesn’t disappear. In fact, he looks even more real.

 

This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder


	3. i put my faith in you, go on my way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter took so long, I had exams and they kinda killed me temporarily but hopefully now they're over i'll be able to update more regularly!!
> 
> chapter title is from like this by pentagon

When the lecture ends, Taeyong jumps out of his seat faster than a bullet out of a gun, shoving his notebook into his bag and snatching his folder off the floor before dashing to the door in an attempt to get there before Donghyuck leaves. He fails. Donghyuck disappears out of the room before Taeyong is even halfway there. Pushing past other students, Taeyong runs after him down the corridor and manages to grab the back of his jacket before he can get into the elevator.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He hisses, yanking Donghyuck backwards and ignoring the weird looks that people passing by give him.

“Oh hey Taeyong,” Donghyuck grins, tilting his head back to look Taeyong in the eyes “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Fancy seeing me- I go to university here. Anyway,” Taeyong lets go of his jacket and Donghyuck slowly turns around to face him, making a point of straightening the collar as Taeyong continues “What are you doing?”

“Hmm, well you see,” He pauses and taps his chin with his forefinger before pointing it at Taeyong “I’m not going to tell you because it’s none of your business.” 

Apparently being annoying runs in the family.

“I’ll tell Doyoung you were here.” Taeyong shoots back, he has no clue if it’s actually an effective threat, but he has to try something.

“Ooo scary, I’m shaking in my converse,” Donghyuck says, raising his eyebrows. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t an effective threat after all “What’s he going to do? Roll his eyes at me? Tell me to go home? Which I was going to do, by the way.”

“I just want to know why you’re still here, is that really too much to ask?”

“Small questions can have big answers, Lee Taeyong, some of which you may not want to know.” Donghyuck says solemnly. Eyes wide and a serious expression fixed on his face for once

Taeyong snorts “Calm down there, fucking Socrates.”

“I’ll forget you just said that and tell you anyway, out of the kindness of my heart,” Donghyuck says, clutching his hands over the centre of his chest. Do demons even have hearts? “My dear brother sidetracked my ride home so I’m waiting until he finishes whatever boring business they have together so that I can get out of here. I had nothing to do while I was waiting, so I followed you.”

Taeyong frowns at him “Wait, does that mean that Sicheng, or whatever his name is, is your way home?”

“And he gets it!” Donghyuck claps his hands together “Great job figuring that out. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me I do actually have somewhere else to be, Doyoung and Sicheng are probably done by now.” His voice is heavy with sarcasm.

"But if gateways can't be summoned right now because of the moon or whatever how's Sicheng getting you home?" Taeyong asks.

"He has ways." Donghyuck says simply "Don't worry your pretty head about it. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me I do actually have somewhere else to be, Doyoung and Sicheng are probably done by now."

“Wait,” Taeyong reaches out to grab Donghyuck's arm and then thinks better of it and lets his hand drop to his side “Who’s Jungwoo?”

Donghyuck grimaces and something flashes lightning fast through his eyes- anger? fear?- but it’s gone before Taeyong can pinpoint it. When he answers he seems older than he had before “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time and will hopefully never hear again. There are some things you’re better off knowing, Lee Taeyong, and Jungwoo is one of them.”

Taeyong opens his mouth to reply but Donghyuck is already out of arm’s reach and walking away fast.

“One last thing,” Taeyong calls after him. Donghyuck pauses, not bothering to turn around. “How do you know my surname?”

“It’s on the front of your folder, genius.” He replies and then he’s gone. Bright red hair vanishing around the corner. Taeyong glances down at the battered folder he’s still clutching to his chest and sure enough, there’s his name, scrawled in messy black marker.

 

 

If Taeyong had been tired before the lecture, his short conversation with Donghyuck has completely drained him and now he feels like he’s about to keel over and fall asleep on the ground at any second. The short walk back to his apartment feels like a lengthy expedition across hundreds of miles and several mountains and when he finally gets back, he barely remembers to shut the door behind himself before collapsing onto the couch.

Judging by the tranquility and the lack of shouting or snide comments being thrown across the room, he managed to make it back before Doyoung. It’s the first time he’s been alone in his apartment for weeks and it feels- odd. Almost as if Doyoung had become a permanent fixture like a wall or lightbulb and now that he’s gone the whole place feels off. Like that time Ten had moved all his furniture 20cm to the right while he was out to see if he’d notice.

Taeyong shrugs it off and buries his face in a pillow. Whatever. He might as well make use of this time before Doyoung gets back by taking a nap. There are a lot of questions that Doyoung needs to answer and the whole thing will be infinitely less painful for Taeyong if he doesn’t feel like he’s about to pass out at any given second.

Just as the world starts to fade out around him and sleep begins to swallow him like a warm blanket, his phone goes off like a siren, cutting through the empty air. For a shapeless moment his tired brain struggles to figure out what exactly it is making all the noise and by the time he’s worked it out, the ringing has stopped. He digs his phone out of his bag anyway and he’s squinting at it trying to read the name on the screen without his glasses when it starts ringing again.

He sighs and answers it “What?”

 _“Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.”_ Ten chirps on the other end of the line.

“I was trying to nap on the couch, actually, before you interrupted me.” Taeyong replies, pinching his cheeks in a useless attempt to wake himself up a bit. He knows that if he falls asleep mid phone call Ten will have no problems with breaking in to kick his ass for it. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again; the downside of having a best friend with no common sense or respect for boundaries

Ten hums slightly _“Semantics. We’re going out tonight, you should come with us for once.”_ Fuck.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Taeyong asks, brain already formulating excuses to try and get out of this. He has a research project due, he’s been asked to cover a shift at the cafe tomorrow morning, he fell down the stairs and broke a leg and now he’s in hospital.

“Me, Johnny, and Winwin y’know my roommate,” Ten says and then when Taeyong doesn’t reply straight away “And you are coming with us. You promised to remember?” Double fuck.

“But Doyoung-” Even as Taeyong’s excuses go it’s a shit one.

“Bring Doyoung with you if you’re that worried about him.” Ten says and Taeyong knows that he’s lost the argument. As if he even had a chance of winning in the first place “Yuta might be there as well- he knows Yuta right?” 

If Yuta’s there then Doyoung probably shouldn’t be unless they feel like risking some sort of altercation. Then again, Ten did always like living life on the edge so he’ll probably think its an amazing idea “Yeah, okay cool. I’ll come.”

“Yay!,” Ten cheers and Taeyong can hear Johnny tell him to shut up “I’ll see you at 10:30, don’t be late or else!” He hangs up before Taeyong has a chance to back out or disagree with him. Fighting the urge to throw his phone across the room, Taeyong drops his face back into the cushion. Great. Just absolutely fucking perfect. This is exactly what he felt like doing with his Friday night.

He doesn’t realise he’s fallen asleep until he’s woken up by someone poking his shoulder roughly. Out of instinct, he swings his arm out at whoever it is. There’s a sharp yelp and the attack on his shoulder stops abruptly. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he sits up. Doyoung is standing next to the couch massaging his shoulder where Taeyong had managed to smack him.

“What the fuck was that for?”

“I thought you were a burglar or something.” Taeyong says, swinging his feet over the side of the couch and standing up. He hadn’t noticed before, but when Doyoung’s standing he’s a good few centimetres taller than Taeyong is. It annoys him more than it probably should.

“I’d be a pretty shit burglar if I purposefully woke you up halfway through robbing you,” Doyoung says with a snort “Like, ‘oh hey I just stole your TV and now I’m taking everything else you own, just thought I’d let you know so you can call the cops on me’ that’d take a level of stupid that even you would struggle to reach.”

Taeyong just frowns at him. His brain is still too fried from sleep to come up with a snarky reply.

“You have some drool on your chin,” Doyoung says helpfully “Great look by the way.”

“Piss off,” Taeyong mumbles “What time is it?” 

“Just after 10.” Doyoung takes his jacket off and hangs it on the back of a chair. The way he moves is strangely fluid, like smoke through empty air. It’s precise too, calculated even, and it reminds Taeyong of the effortless way that ballet dancers float across the stage. He realises that he’s staring and tears his eyes away, hitting himself on the side of the head to clear his mind. What the hell’s gotten into him?

“Ten will be here soon,” Taeyong says “We’re going out, you can come as well if you want.” It’d be rude not to at least ask. 

“There are things I’d rather be doing,” Doyoung replies, walking over to the fridge “Like gargling sulphuric acid for starters, or letting hellhounds eat all my limbs while I’m still alive.” He opens the fridge door and spends a couple of seconds moving everything about as he looks. Taeyong knows for a fact that all that’s in there is some leftover takeout, hot sauce, and some suspicious smelling milk. Grocery shopping is pretty low on his list of priorities “Hey do we have any bagels left?”

“Try the cupboard.”

Taeyong slams the door to his room behind him and leans against it, staring at the floor for a few moments before heading to his closet and digging through it in an attempt to find something that Ten would deem acceptable. It’s harder than it sounds. Who knows, he thinks to himself as he drags a pair of black jeans out from underneath a precariously balanced pile of hoodies, this could be fun if he tries to be positive about it. Ten is his friend for a reason, it’s not like he hates spending time with him. It should all be fine as long as he doesn’t get completely blackout drunk and that shouldn’t be too hard to avoid.

Finally somewhat happy with the outfit he’s managed to patch together from the few things he has left that are actually clean (he really, _really_ needs to do his laundry but the shitty laundromat is miles away and the idea doesn’t seem particularly appealing) he closes the closet door and stares at himself in the mirror. The circles under his eyes aren’t too bad for once and thankfully his skin is pretty clear. He messes his hair about a bit with his fingers in an attempt to fix it and sighs to himself, his roots have grown in more than he realised. He should probably fix that at some point. Mentally he adds it to his list of things to do later. At this point, it’s less of a list and more of a short novel about procrastination, but that’s life.

In a last-ditch attempt to make himself look less like a corpse and more like a functioning human being, he smudges some eyeliner across his eyelids and steps back to look at himself from a distance. Nope. That did nothing. If anything it makes his face look even more hollow, like a skull. Maybe Johnny had been right when he’d said that Taeyong was overworking himself in the run-up to finals. He snorts slightly, Johnny being right _ha_ that’d be a first.

When he finally leaves his room it’s dangerously close to 10:30 and Doyoung is sitting on the ceiling with a bagel in one hand, holding his phone in the other and frowning at it. Weird, Taeyong had been certain that there weren’t any bagels left, he’d just told Doyoung to check the cupboards to get him to shut up.

“We just spent ages getting you off that ceiling and now first chance you get you’re back up there?” Taeyong asks in disbelief.

“I like it up here, it’s comfortable,” Doyoung says, taking a bite of his bagel, never once looking up from his phone. Something on the screen makes his eyes widen in disbelief “Mother _fucker_.” He hisses.

“Language.” Taeyong says, but he doesn’t mean it, it’s just second nature by now to annoy Doyoung in any way he can “Have you seen my jacket anywhere? The black one.”

“Yeah, it was over by the…” Doyoung finally looks down at Taeyong and his voice trails off “Door.”

Taeyong feels his face twist into a frown “Do I really look that bad?” He all but spits it. Something about today has his temper hanging by a single thread and it doesn’t take much to make it snap.

Doyoung blinks several times, his face oddly blank “What- no- you look fine.” Doyoung says and then he’s back to devoting all his attention to his stupid phone.

“Thanks. That really means a lot.” He grabs his jacket from where Doyoung had said it was, fuck him for knowing that, and stalks out letting the door slam shut behind him.

“What’s gotten you so worked up?”

Taeyong jumps backwards and almost screams in surprise. Ten is leaning against the wall next to Taeyong’s door, grinning like a Cheshire cat. His jeans have so many rips in them that he might as well not be wearing them and his eyes are lined with glitter. Typical Ten. Every inch of him is immaculate and Taeyong feels even more like a mess.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Taeyong finally says when he no longer feels like he’s having a heart attack “You can’t just surprise people like that.”

“Sorry, it’s not Jesus it’s just me,” Ten’s grin widens even more if that were possible “C’mon, Winwin and Johnny went on ahead, I said we’d see them there.”

Ten snakes his arm through Taeyong’s and tugs him towards the stairs. He’s practically skipping and his happiness is infectious. Taeyong is smiling before he can think about it. Letting himself get caught up in Ten’s excited monologue as they exit the building and meander down the street, not bothering to rush.

Ten pauses mid-sentence and turns to face Taeyong “You look good, by the way.”

By the time they get to the club, it’s just after 11 and Taeyong has let go of most of his dread about the whole thing. The music is deafeningly loud and Taeyong can feel the bass pulsating in his chest like a second heartbeat. Coloured beams of light swirl through the air in dizzying patterns, cutting through the twilight. Ten leads them through the crowd, weaving his way past people like he’s a professional. Not once does he let go of Taeyong’s arm. It’s as if he thinks Taeyong will leg it at the first opportunity he gets. They find Johnny and Winwin sitting in a booth near the bar.

“TY!” Johnny shouts over the music “I’ve missed you.” If the way his words slur together slightly and his flushed cheeks are any indication, he’s just on the wrong side of tipsy. He reaches out and wraps his arm around Taeyong’s waist, pulling him into the seat next to him. Across from them, Winwin takes a sip of his drink and waves.

“We already got you drinks.” He says, putting his glass down and pushing a couple of bottles of soju towards Ten and Taeyong. Taeyong takes one with a smile.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” Winwin says, leaning his head against the wall next to him. When he says it it’s not a complaint, just an observation. Said in the same way you’d make a remark about the weather.

“I’ve been busy.” Taeyong says with an apologetic smile. Time always manages to slip out from underneath and rush past him like a river after heavy rain. Having Doyoung around hasn’t exactly helped matters

“It’s okay, I’ve been busy as well.” Winwin replies and Taeyong isn’t sure if he’s seeing things or if Winwin is actually glowing. There’s a soft golden aura surrounding him and his eyes are unnaturally bright. Taeyong rubs his eyes and takes a swig from his bottle. Tiredness and the club lighting are just fucking with his mind.

By the time Taeyong finishes his second bottle, his thoughts are starting to go slightly fuzzy around the edges and he feels like he’s floating. He isn’t drunk, not quite at least. Ten has been getting louder and louder the more he drinks and currently he’s kneeling in his seat as he tells a highly dramatised story about- actually Taeyong can’t remember what it’s about. Every now and again Johnny chimes in to help, it’s obvious this is something Ten’s told him multiple times before. Hell, he’s probably told Taeyong before, not that he can remember. Winwin is in hysterics, laughing harder every time Ten starts waving his arms around in an attempt to illustrate the point he’s making.

Taeyong rests his head on Johnny’s shoulder and giggles as Ten gets a bit too into his retelling and almost falls over sideways. He lets everything around him fade to white noise as he thinks to himself, absentmindedly tapping his finger on the table. He wonders what Doyoung is doing. Did he stay in on the ceiling or did he go see one of his demon friends? Sicheng maybe. Had Doyoung said something about that? There’s a chance he had, but Taeyong’s memory is cotton wool and radio static right now and he doubts he could remember anything that didn’t happen in the last hour even if someone paid him. Why’s he even thinking about this? What Doyoung does in his free time is none of his concern. Doyoung could be back in Hell now for all he cares.

“Taeyong, Taeyong you in there buddy?” Ten snaps his fingers in front of Taeyong’s face “What’s got you so deep in thought?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Taeyong sighs. Winwin raises an eyebrow at him and Taeyong focuses his attention on what’s left of his drink. 

“Does nothing’s name maybe start with ‘Do’ and end with ‘young’?” Ten asks, the picture of fake innocence.

Taeyong almost chokes on his mouthful of soju “What the fuck- no- definitely not.” Okay, yes maybe it does, but Ten never needs to know that. Ever.

Ten gives him a disbelieving look “Sure thing. Anway, come dance with me, I’m bored.” Taeyong nods and lets Ten pull him to his feet and onto the dance floor, Winwin following them. Johnny stays behind at their table, he claims it’s to keep an eye on their stuff but Taeyong knows it’s because he’s the least coordinated person in the world, even when he’s not intoxicated. 

It was already uncomfortably warm and in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by people, it’s like being in a sauna. Taeyong tries his best to ignore how his shirt is sticking uncomfortably to his back and instead focuses on Winwin. He’s completely absorbed in the music, eyes half closed as he dances. The way he turns is so graceful it looks as if he’s lighter than air. Gravity doesn’t apply to him in the same way that it does to everyone else. Taeyong would be lying if he said it doesn’t take his breath away.

Sparks fly from the tips of his fingers as he turns and they hang there for a second in a trail before flickering out like embers and Taeyong freezes. That definitely isn’t normal. He opens his mouth, a question forming on his lips and Winwin finally notices him staring and turns to face him. Time slows down for a moment as Winwin winks at him, his eyes the deep golden-orange of autumn leaves and as bright as twin suns. Then he turns back to Ten and the spell breaks. 

What the fuck.

He shakes his head to clear it. This is just a mixture of paranoia and alcohol. It’s like when you think someone’s following you and you suddenly start seeing them around every corner and in every crowd. The same thing is happening to him right now, only it’s demons, not stalkers. The sparks were probably the strobe lights fragmenting off cigarette smoke and the glare from Winwin’s eyes was just a reflection. That’s all.

Ten hugs him from behind and effectively ends his train of thought “There’s a guy at the bar who’s been staring at you for the last five minutes,” He mumbles into Taeyong’s ear, his chin resting on Taeyong’s shoulder “He’s kinda cute d’you know him?” Taeyong looks across at the bar and feels ice sink down his spine.

Jungwoo.

He’s leaning against the bar, his posture relaxed and he’s spinning a ring between his thumb and forefinger slowly. Everything about him screams wealth from his finely cut jacket to the gold pendant that hangs from his neck shimmering in the light. He gives Taeyong a wave and smiles his shallow smile, his eyes as sharp as flint. Taeyong watches with slowly increasing panic as Jungwoo pays for his drink and gets up off his stool.

“We’ve met.” He says through gritted teeth and Ten removes his head from his shoulder.

“I’m going to go check on Johnny,” Ten says, he grins and mock salutes for some fucking reason “Have fun.” And then he’s gone like the sun behind storm clouds and Taeyong is left shivering in the shadows.

“Taeyong,” His voice is as soft as it had been when they’d met earlier. Had it really only been that morning? But it still manages to slice through the thrum of the music and the loud conversations around them “What a pleasure seeing you here.”

“Really, the pleasures all mine.” Taeyong tries to step back but the bodies around him keep him penned in. If there was ever a time to not start suffering from claustrophobia this was it, but apparently, the universe is out for Taeyong’s blood. “I should really get going, my friends-”

“You probably have a lot of questions,” Jungwoo says and just like that he has Taeyong ensnared “I can answer them.”

“Okay. Okay, then start talking or I leave.” Taeyong is still hesitant, every logical thought urging him to get the hell out of there, but in this case, curiosity is stronger than fear.

“Oh don’t be like that.” Jungwoo pouts “At least dance with me.” He offers his hand and Taeyong takes it reluctantly. Jungwoo twines his fingers together with Taeyong’s and rests his other hand on his wait before leaning forward to whisper in Taeyong’s ear.

“Doyoung isn’t who you think he is.” Taeyong can feel Jungwoo’s breath against his neck and he shivers and fights the urge to run.

“What do you mean?” He asks instead.

“Come on,” Jungwoo chides as if Taeyong is a child “Didn’t you ever wonder how he could walk between dimensions? If every demon could do that your pretty little word would be in chaos,” Taeyong bites his lip and Jungwoo presses on “Did he even tell you who I am? Or did he just tell you not to bother?”

“He did,” Taeyong admits “But I trust him, at least more than I trust you.”

Jungwoo laughs at that, his laughter is soft and malicious at the same time just like every other part of him “That’s your first mistake. Countless others have trusted Doyoung and it hasn’t ended well for any of them.”

“What-”

“I’m speaking from experience.” Jungwoo spins them around dizzyingly fast “He’s done things more terrible than you could ever imagine.”

“So have most of my friends. What’s your point?” Jungwoo must really be stupid if he thinks Taeyong assumed that Doyoung had lived a life of rainbows and community service and helping old ladies cross roads safely. He is a demon, after all, the title is sort of self-explanatory. Plus he gets along with Ten and that’s not something that someone with a decent moral compass can do easily. Johnny is sort of the exception to that rule.

“Don’t act so half-witted.” Jungwoo’s grip on Taeyong’s waist tightens, fingers digging into his skin uncomfortably. Taeyong flinches and his fight or flight instinct finally kicks in in full force. Only it’s more fight _and_ flight simultaneously. He brings his knee up and slams it into Jungwoo, throwing himself back a couple of feet.

Jungwoo hisses in pain, eyes filled with a terrible all-consuming rage and he lunges for Taeyong. His hands never make contact.

“Get out of here.” Doyoung’s voice is ice and fire and he’s gripping Jungwoo’s wrist like a vice. Around them everything grinds to a halt, the moment suspended in stasis. Even the music has stopped completely. Dancers around them pause mid-move, eyes open and unseeing. As if they’re all robots hooked up to a circuit and someone just flicked the off switch.

“Nice party trick,” Jungwoo shakes Doyoung off and takes a small step forward. Not enough to make a difference, but enough to prove that he doesn’t fear Doyoung, enough to prove that he isn’t going to back down without a fight “I’m afraid your fancy theatrics aren’t going to cut it, sweetheart. All they’re going to do is drain you.”

“Who says I’m the one doing this?” Doyoung’s mouth twists into a smirk. This is less of a fight, Taeyong realises, and more of a dance. To see who’ll crack and forget the choreography first. It’s all push and pull and insults embedded in casual remarks.

“Please, as if you have any friends left.” Jungwoo shifts from one foot to another and Taeyong would almost say that he looks nervous “It’s just you and me, darling.”

“Get out of here,” Doyoung’s voice is dangerously low, Jungwoo’s hit a nerve and Taeyong isn’t sure what exactly it was that he said that had gotten right underneath Doyoung’s skin. Then again, every one of Jungwoo’s words is thought out, a well designed weighted barb “I won’t warn you again.”

“Get out of here or what? You’ll tell _Him?_ I thought you would’ve realised by now that that never works.” Jungwoo singsongs. 

“Maybe not for long, but every second that I can spend without having to see your face is a blessing.” 

Jungwoo gasps “I’m wounded, really.” His voice is monotone.

“What do you want Jungwoo? Do you want to fight here, really? In the middle of a club in the human world, surrounded by mortals who could easily end up as casualties? You know that won’t go down well with anyone Upstairs.” This time Doyoung is the one who steps forward, slowly moving as he talks until he’s standing between Taeyong and Jungwoo.

“For someone who’s been alive for as long as you have, you really are stupid.” Jungwoo looks almost giddy and Taeyong sees it before Doyoung does, sees the flash of metal in Jungwoo’s palm, sees him bring the dagger through the air and into Doyoung’s side. Taeyong tries to cry out but something catches in his throat and only a strangled cough comes out of his mouth.

“Ouch,” Doyoung says mildly, lifting his arm to get a better look. From what Taeyong can make out, the dagger is lodged firmly between two of his ribs. A black stain blooms out from it like the petals of a flower “For hell’s sake you know I hate the sight of blood.” With his other hand he reaches around and pulls the dagger out in one swift movement. It clatters to the floor like a broken toy.

“That’s- that’s not possible.” 

“Seeing is believing Jungwoo, _darling._ ” Doyoung winks at Jungwoo and the panic that had been building in Taeyong’s stomach like an avalanche rushing down a hill dies a death. If Doyoung is well enough to act like that then he isn’t at any risk of dying. Probably.

“The blade was-”

“Blessed? Yes, I know. Fuck you for that by the way, it stung like a bitch.” Doyoung bends down and picks the dagger up, turning it over in his hands “Not a very strong enchantment though, how exactly was this meant to mortally wound me?”

“This stupid freeze frame business should’ve made you weak enough.” Jungwoo gestures around them at the dancers who are still stock still, none of them have moved an inch since this began. The blot on Doyoung’s shirt has already stopped growing.

“Does no one listen to me?” Doyoung whines, dragging his hands down his face in exasperation. He turns to Taeyong “No one?” back to Jungwoo “I told you it wasn’t me doing this so it wouldn’t be tiring me out and you just said- what was it again ‘As if you have any friends’? And now you look like a complete idiot. That’s what you get for being a smartass.”

Jungwoo flushes bright red, under the blue strobe lights it looks more like an ugly bruise “Whatever, I could still beat you in a fight.”

“Want to bet?”

The temperature drops by several degrees and Jungwoo’s hair shifts as if it’s being blown by an invisible breeze. One second his golden brown eyes are glaring down Doyoung, the next they’re pure white and soulless. Electricity crackles across his palms and ripples along each finger.

In front of him, Taeyong can see Doyoung tense and the now familiar smell of ozone overpowers the smell of sweat and cheap booze. Lights flicker around them and there’s a weird tugging feeling in his chest; once again it feels like he’s in a black hole with Doyoung at the centre.

“Stop this. Now.” Winwin steps out of the crowd. His voice is part quiet authority, part something that makes Taeyong think that he couldn’t go against what he said even if he wanted to. He looks different as well. Everything about him is sharper, more feline. High cheekbones and skin that looks as if it’s been brushed with gold dust. The tips of his ears poke out from his hair and they’re unnaturally pointed. _Goblin ears_ Taeyong thinks to himself aimlessly.

“ _You._ ” Jungwoo spits, voice overflowing with disgust “I should’ve known.”

“And yet you didn’t.” Winwin says pleasantly “Now, I suggest you get going unless you really feel like losing.”

“Fine,” It doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s fine, he sounds like he’d rather jump out of a third story window and shatter every bone in his legs than agree with Winwin. He turns to Taeyong “Just in case.” He hands Taeyong a piece of card and Taeyong tucks it into his pocket without reading it. 

“You haven’t won,” He tells Doyoung. It sounds like he meant to say “I’ll be back.” 

Jungwoo tilts his head back and spreads his arms out, palms open and facing upwards as if he’s waiting for something to fall into them. Thunder booms overhead and lightning flashes so bright that Taeyong flinches and squeezes his eyes shut out of reflex. By the time he opens them again, Jungwoo has vanished leaving behind only a charred mark on the floor to prove that his existence hadn’t been a fever dream.

“Well,” Doyoung says, sounding shaken “He always did like to make an exit.”

“How did you even know he was here?” Is the first thing Taeyong thinks to ask when his brain finally kicks back in again.

“Sicheng called me.” Doyoung nods to Winwin.

Taeyong wheels round “Wait _you’re_ Sicheng?”

“Winwin’s just a nickname,” Winwin- no Sicheng says “Ten gave it to me when we first became roommates because he could never win a game of, well, anything against me. It was his idea of a joke at the time, but it stuck.”

“And are you a demon too?”

Sicheng laughs “No, I’m not.”

“May I have the honour of introducing Prince Sicheng of the Seelie court.” Doyoung slings his arm around Sicheng’s shoulders and Sicheng hits him lightly on the chest.

“Stop it. He looks like his head is about to explode.”

Taeyong does honestly feel like his brain is working on overdrive and when he looks back on what he says next he’ll blame his stupidity on that “So are you like a fairy?”

Doyoung tries to stop himself from laughing and sounds more like he’s choking. Taeyong resists the urge to punch him as hard as possible in the back. Just in case he actually is choking. Safety precautions and all that.

“Yes, only not at all.” Sicheng finally replies when Doyoung finally stops sounding like he’s dying.

“Oh. Cool.”

“Doyoung and I go way back,” Sicheng says “Almost as far back as him and Jungwoo.”

“Sicheng.” Doyoung’s voice is low and it’s clear that it’s a warning.

“Fine, I won’t mention it anymore tonight, but you can’t keep running from this forever Doyoung. This isn’t like the last time or the time before, he’s getting angrier, more desperate.” Sicheng snaps his fingers and around them, people swing back into motion as if he’s just pressed play on a movie “You two should get home now. Taeyong, I’ll tell Ten that you weren’t feeling well so you left.” And with that, he’s gone.

To say Taeyong is lost would be an understatement, but he follows Doyoung out of the club anyway and they’re halfway home before he manages to pick up the courage to ask anything.

He scuffs the toes of his shoes on the pavement and fixes his eyes on them as he does “Who is Jungwoo? How do you know him?” He can’t see Doyoung, but he knows that he tenses up, that he looks part way between furious and like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

“Leave it.” Is the only answer he gets before Doyoung picks up his pace, striding away from him as fast as he can.

 

 

After that night things are- they’re not awkward per se- but conversation is more strained on the rare occasions when they do actually talk. Finals are right around the corner and Taeyong has taken to staying at the library whenever he isn’t working or in class. He’s only home to sleep. Doyoung is also out all day every day. He leaves in the morning before Taeyong wakes up and gets back at night after he’s gone to sleep, sometimes he doesn’t come home at all. The only signs that he’s still living in Taeyong’s apartment are his extra pair of shoes by the door, the blankets on the couch, and the bagel crumbs scattered across the kitchen counter every morning. Taeyong knows that Doyoung’s avoiding him because he doesn’t want to have to answer any questions and to be honest, it hurts. They’ve known each other for months and Doyoung won’t even tell him who Jungwoo is. Like he thinks Taeyong is a child who needs to be left in the dark.

The amount of studying he’s having to do for his exams pushes his resentment onto the backburner. He hasn’t got time for mysterious fucking demon drama when he has classes to pass. It’s his second to last year and suddenly everything matters and every grade counts for so much more.

That doesn’t stop him from meeting up with Mark.

Who Mark is depends on who you listen to. According to Taeyong he’s his friend, according to Johnny he’s Taeyongs adopted son, and according to Ten he’s Taeyong’s charity case. The truth is an amalgamation of all of those things. In his first semester, Mark had been dubbed by Ten- who knew him from dance club, or the Foreign Students Association, or somewhere else equally irrelevant- as the quote unquote disaster freshman. For some reason, Taeyong had decided to take him under his wing and here they are, a year and a half later, with Mark still following him around like a duckling.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” Mark says, they’re at the cafe closest to the library. Mark had finally managed to persuade Taeyong to leave for half an hour (by sending him a single text. But that’s neither here nor there).

“Why does everyone keep saying that!”

“Because you kinda disappeared off the face of the earth for a few weeks!” Mark exclaims “You can’t just do that and expect no one to notice.”

“Okay, okay I’m sorry.” Taeyong groans. And he does mean it. 

“You’re here now and that’s what counts.”

They finally get to the front of the queue and the boy behind the till smiles at Mark, his eyes crinkling into crescent moons.

“Hi, Mark! What can I get you?”

“Hi Jeno, please can I have an Americano and- Taeyong what do you want?”

Taeyong orders his drink and quickly pays for both of them before Mark gets a chance to pull any money over his pockets. He definitely isn’t paying because he feels guilty for abandoning Mark for a few weeks (okay, he is.). Jeno hands their drinks over with a chirpy “Have a nice day!” and he waves at Mark. Mark waves back a bit too enthusiastically and Taeyong raises his eyebrows in a silent question, but Mark just blushes beet red and looks away.

They sit at one of the tables by the window and Mark starts to catch Taeyong up on pretty much everything that’s happened in his life since they last saw each other. From complaining about Johnny’s iron rule over the basketball team to excitedly telling Taeyong about how he’s no longer failing Chemistry.

“I thought it’d be an easy A.” He’d told Taeyong mournfully when the grades from his first test had come back and he’d been met with a solid D+.

Taeyong had stared at him in silence for a moment before saying “Mark this is Chemistry we’re talking about, no one does well in that not even people who major in it.”

Mark’s only got through about a week’s worth of events when Taeyong smells oranges and feels a hand clasp his shoulder. He looks up and Donghyuck grins back at him, red hair sticking up around his head like a halo.

“Have you seen Doyoung?” He asks.

“Not today.” Taeyong replies and turns back around to face Mark, foolishly hoping that Donghyuck will go away. No such luck. Instead, the grip on his shoulder gets tighter as Donghyuck puts more weight on it, leaning forward to get a better look at Mark.

“And who’s this? It’s awfully rude of you to not introduce us.” He says, his voice sounds like chaos and everything that could possibly go wrong.

“Donghyuck, this is Mark, my friend. Mark, this is Donghyuck, he’s my uh- roommate’s younger brother. I guess you’re probably both about the same age.”

“Give or take a few thousand years.” Donghyuck says and Mark laughs nervously.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” Mark says “Are you one of the performing arts kids?”

“You could put it that way,” Donghyuck replies, he sits down on the edge of the table next to Taeyong and rests his feet on the empty chair “What makes you say that?”

Mark shrugs “I don’t know, you just seem like one of them. Like you genuinely enjoy musicals and quote Shakespeare and, I don’t know, Wordsworth and all those other poets. Fake deep with a flair for the dramatic”

“Be careful what you say, Mark Lee,” Donghyuck points a finger at him “I can make your life hell.” Marks eyes go wide and Taeyong takes a massive gulp of his drink to try and stop himself from laughing.

“Anyway, I have places to be and more important people to see, thanks for nothing Taeyong.” Donghyuck hops down from the table.

“No problem.” Taeyong says dryly.

Donghyuck blows a kiss at Mark “I’ll see you around.” It sounds like a threat. The door swings shut behind him and Taeyong watches as he disappears down the street.

“What the fuck was that?” Mark asks, still looking slightly shellshocked. Taeyong just shrugs.

 

 

Apart from that one meet up with Mark, the rest of Taeyong’s month is a haze of late nights spent studying and endless stress. Exams pass by in such a blur that Taeyong can hardly remember what the questions he answered were about by the time he steps out of the room. Doyoung has continued to mostly leave him alone, but he has taken to occasionally checking up on Taeyong when he’s studying to make sure he’s still mostly functioning. Taeyong part appreciates it and part finds it infuriating. He’s an adult for fuck's sake. The one time he’d asked Doyoung when he’d stop treating him like a child, Doyoung had just fixed him with a level glare and said “When you stop acting like one.” before going back to whatever book he’d been reading. Taeyong vaguely remembers saying something similar to Mark before.

His final exam is on a Friday morning and although the weather’s fine when he leaves the apartment, by the time he finally escapes from the exam the sun has been swallowed whole by storm clouds and torrential rain. His only options are to wait it out or to make a break for it and hope for the best. He doesn’t have a coat or enough money for the bus, and it doesn’t seem likely that it’s going to lessen up any time soon. So, he thinks fuck it, because all he wants to do is sleep and he doesn’t think that anyone would be too thrilled if he curled up on the floor here and took a nap, and he steps through the door and runs as fast as he can. Rain pelts against him like hundreds of thousands of tiny bullets and he can barely see because of it, but he still manages to get home in one piece.

He crashes in through the door, startling Doyoung who’s sitting at the table writing what looks like some sort of letter. Doyoung flips the paper upside down before Taeyong can get a proper look at it and stands up “I thought you’d be at the library until later.”

“Finals are over, I’m free,” Taeyong is grinning so wide that he feels like his face might split in two as the realisation that it’s over and he survived finally hits him. He feels giddy and slightly floaty, like that time he’d let Ten drag him to one of Johnny’s parties during freshman year and he’d accidentally eaten half a pot brownie “I’m so fucking happy I could kiss you.”

“Then do it.” Doyoung says and he’s joking, it’s obvious from the raised eyebrow and the smirk that’s tugging at one corner of his mouth, but Taeyong’s so out of it that he doesn’t care and he grabs Doyoung’s face with both hands and presses their mouths together hard. It isn’t graceful. Taeyong’s hands are clammy and still shaking from the cold and his hair is still dripping water into his eyes and down his face. Overall it’s less of a kiss and more of a collision, but Doyoung doesn’t shove him away or smite him or whatever it is demons do. They stay there frozen for several long seconds that feel more like hours before Taeyong finally realises exactly _what_ it is that he’s doing and jumps backwards like he’s been burned.

“I’m going to go get changed- the rain-” He stammers out, gesturing at his soaked shirt and then all but runs past Doyoung and into his room. He doesn’t actually get changed. He just flops down onto the bed face first and fights the urge to scream into his pillow. How could he be so fucking dumb? Things were already awkward between them and he just had to go and make an even bigger mess of it. Where the hell is impulse control when you need it? He doesn’t even like Doyoung like that. Right?

In the end, he’s so tired that he falls asleep in the middle of his mild crisis, still in his wet clothes. He’s woken up by what sounds like someone trying to break down the front door of his apartment. He checks his phone and it’s 11 am the day after he sort of kissed, sort of attacked Doyoung and despite getting about eighteen hours of sleep he still looks and feels like a sewer rat. As quickly as he possibly can while still being half asleep he swaps his still damp clothes for something drier and probably clean. The person outside still sounds like they’re taking a battering ram to the door. He stumbles out of his room and Doyoung waves at him from the ceiling. 

“Why couldn’t you have opened the door.” Taeyong grumbles, mostly to himself.

“You told me not to remember? In case it was someone I didn’t know.” Taeyong really hates him for being right.

Taeyong shuffles over to the door and slides the bolt over before yanking it open “Ten, I swear to fucking-” Whatever he was about to say next dies in his throat because the person outside definitely isn’t Ten. 

For one, he’s wearing a suit. A proper ironed black suit that looks more expensive than everything Taeyong owns put together and Taeyong doubts that Ten has ever even heard of formal wear, it’s practically a foreign word to him. Secondly, the first thing he says when Taeyong opens the door is “Is Doyoung there? I need to speak with him.”

“Kun,” Doyoung says from right behind Taeyong “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon.”

“Neither did I,” Kun says, lips pursed together “But there’s been, how do I put this, _issues_ in court and your father wants you back to help smooth them over.” There’s a cold look in Kun’s eyes that sends shivers down Taeyong’s spine.

“What if I don't want to.” Doyoung says and Kun sighs as if he’d been expecting this.

“It’s either you or Donghyuck.” He says “One of you has to go.” And Doyoung blanches at that, all the colour vanishing from his face.

“Fine. I’ll do it. That idiot brother of mine doesn’t have the head for politics.” It sounds like an excuse. There’s something else that Doyoung isn’t saying.

“Thank you.” Kun says “I’ll be waiting outside.” And then he closes the door behind him and Doyoung and Taeyong are left standing in awkward silence. 

“I’ll probably be back in a few days.” Doyoung says, he looks nervous, his hands playing with the hem of his shirt.

“It’s fine, you wanted to get home anyway, this is your chance you don’t have come back.”

“I meant to get my stuff,” Doyoung says and Taeyong scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. Oh. And then “But seeing you will be a bonus.” 

“I guess I’ll see you then.” Taeyong gives him a weak smile and Doyoung steps forward to press a kiss to Taeyong’s forehead, butterfly light and so quick he’s almost sure he imagined it.

“See you then.”

Doyoung slips through the door and Taeyong is left alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/daybreakmp3)


	4. deja vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when i said i'd update more often i lied. this was written in a rush. it isn't very good and i barely proof read it so apologies for any errors, but things are finally starting to happen!

“You’re moping.” Ten announces as he drags Taeyong’s blanket away from him. Taeyong swears nonsensically and bats his hands at Ten, but he’s still too sleepy to cause any real injury and Ten just laughs and leans back out of arm’s reach. He isn’t sure how Ten managed to get into his apartment and he would ask, but he isn’t sure that he’ll like the answer.

“I’m not moping,” Taeyong says, giving up on trying to wrestle his blanket back from Ten and flopping backwards onto his pillow “It’s 9 in the morning so, like any other reasonable college student, I was sleeping.”

“You were moping in your sleep,” Ten insists “Sleep moping. It’s a real thing and you were doing it and I could practically hear it from all the way upstairs.” He stands up off the bed and pulls the curtains on the window back. Sunlight streams in and Taeyong screeches and shields his eyes as it momentarily blinds him “Drama queen.” Ten snorts under his breath.

“What did you call me?” Taeyong lifts his hands off his face slightly to glare at Ten.

“You heard me, your Highness.” Ten pats Taeyong on the knee and walks out of the room “Now get up, I’m making pancakes.” He calls over his shoulder. 

Taeyong practically sprints out of the room after him. Ten attempting to cook is comparable only to extinction level catastrophes like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs or the Yellowstone supervolcano finally erupting and Taeyong will be damned if he allows it to happen.

 

In the end, Taeyong ends up making pancakes because Ten makes it clear that he’s not going to give up on trying to cook and Taeyong really, really likes his kitchen in the relatively clean, mostly working state that it’s currently in. Sure the oven is temperamental and every pot and pan he owns has seen better days, but it’s all in one piece and if he let Ten near anything, even the microwave, it wouldn’t remain that way for long. They end up eating them sitting on the couch. It’s still too early in the morning for fancy things like tables.

“You have two options,” Ten spears a mouthful of pancake with his fork and points it at Taeyong “Either you forget about him and go back to living life however you did before, or you actually do something to try and find him. You can’t live the rest of your life just waiting for something to happen. I mean you can, but I won’t let you.” He sticks the pancake into his mouth while looking at Taeyong expectantly. Syrup drips down his chin 

“It’s just,” Taeyong sighs and pushes his food around his plate. He isn’t hungry, a mixture of nerves and the lack of sleep he’s running on and something close to hopelessness but not as severe makes his stomach recoil at the thought of food “It’s been over a month, Ten, and he said he’d be a few days. What if something bad happened? He could be dead somewhere for all I know. I’m not moping, I’m just worried.” He drops his fork onto the plate and glares at it ruefully as if it’s the reason that Doyoung’s been gone for 33 days. Not that he’s counting or anything.

“Why did he say he was leaving?” Ten asks. He’s still eating, but now all his attention is fixed on Taeyong. If he’s honest it’s rather unnerving.

“It was kinda vague, he didn’t actually say why he was leaving. It was the guy who looked like a secret agent or a CEO.”

“Not everyone who wears a fancy suit is a CEO.” Ten replies.

“Have you ever seen anyone else wearing a tailored suit? Apart from maybe like big shot lawyers and celebrities. But anyway that’s not the point. Suit guy- Kun- said something about there being problems in a court? But he didn’t say anything else.” Taeyong sighs and leans his elbows on the table. It’s a dead end. Going back over what happened is like following a road that goes over the edge of a cliff. Only there isn’t anything at the bottom of the cliff, just a black hole of nothing.

“And you didn’t think to mention that before?” From Ten’s tone, Taeyong is pretty sure that if they hadn’t been sitting on opposite sides of the table Ten would’ve smacked him on the back of the head.

“Mention what?” 

Ten makes a high pitched noise of frustration and jabs his fork towards Taeyong “The court! Didn’t your little pea brain even register that? What kinda regular guy has to up and leave for something like that.”

“He isn’t a ‘regular guy’ he’s a demon, and I really don’t see how this is helpful to me, like at all.”

“Oh, it isn’t,” Ten shrugs “It’s just interesting.”

“I hate you. I hope you know that.” Taeyong groans, running his hands through his hair until he’s pretty sure he looks like he just got electrocuted. Honestly, at this point, he isn’t sure why he ever expects any of his friends to say anything helpful at all. They seem to take pride in managing to out-dumb each other and it’s an endless circle of competition that right now Ten seems to be winning. Taeyong really wishes that Sicheng was would answer his phone, he’s normally fairly level-headed and he knows more about Doyoung than everyone else that Taeyong knows put together, but according to Ten he left the day after Doyoung and hasn’t been back since. Every call goes straight to voicemail and Taeyong hears the automated message playing on a loop whenever time he closes his eyes.

“Thanks,” Ten grins widely like someone just told him that he’d won the lottery “But are you sure that you have actually tried everything.” Taeyong doesn’t like where this is going. Not at all.

“Yes.” He says shortly in the foolish, foolish hope of cutting Ten off before he can start. By now, Taeyong should really know better.

Ten carefully puts his fork down and folds his hands together on the table in front of him. He looks like a teacher about to reprimand a poorly behaved child or a therapist about to give some extremely condescending advice. The voice in Taeyong’s head screaming that this is very, very bad reaches a fever pitch. Alarm bells are ringing and Kill Bill sirens are playing in the distance and slowly getting louder 

“Donghyuck.” 

“No,” Taeyong says, barely giving Ten time to finish saying his name “No, there’s no fucking way I’m asking him for help. I’d rather fail every single one of my finals and burn all the skin off my hands or ask Yuta for life advice”

 

-

Donghyuck arrives at the cafe twenty minutes late. 

All the ice in Taeyong’s drink has long since melted turning it into a gross, watery mess and it sits there in front of him, completely untouched. Condensation drips down the side of it like tiny rivers down a glacier. Maybe it would’ve been easier to get Donghyuck to come to his apartment again, but having him there makes Taeyong feel distinctly uneasy. He’s too much of a loose cannon and there’s no way to predict whether he’d trash something valuable for the laughs. It seems like something he’d do.

The bell on the door dings as Donghyuck swans in as if he owns the place. Despite the fact that it’s the middle of summer and temperatures have skyrocketed to the point where it feels like the heat is roasting Taeyong alive, Donghyuck is still wearing all black from head to toe. Ripped jeans that look as if they’ve been attacked by a knife-wielding octopus, and a loose shirt with a leather jacket. It’s like he’s determined to live up to some demonic stereotype or die from heatstroke.

“You’re late,” Taeyong says as Donghyuck slides into the seat opposite him and kicks his feet up onto the table.

“You’re lucky I bothered to turn up at all.” Donghyuck shoots back, raising an eyebrow in a smooth motion that would make Taeyong feel nervous if it wasn’t for the overwhelming irritation that Donghyuck inspires in him. It seemed to be second nature to Donghyuck, to find a way to get underneath someone’s skin and dance along their nerves. Knowing just what to say, exactly how to act, the little nuances that apart meant nothing, but together were enough to make you want to sucker punch him right between his too bright eyes.

Taeyong ignores that and lets it brush past him like dust, although he has to hold himself together to stop himself from making some petty retort. He’s slowly learning that once you let Donghyuck know he’s found a way to annoy you, he’ll keep prodding at it like a cat toying with his prey and it’s best to ignore him. Even if sometimes it does feel like letting him win.

“Have you seen Doyoung?” Taeyong asks, his hands in his lap to hide how he’s fidgeting with the edge of his sleeves. Something between a nervous tic and a way from stopping himself from smacking the smirk off Donghyuck’s impish face.

“Straight to the point,” Donghyuck says, examining his fingernails and picking at the chipped nail polish “I like it.”

“Well?”

“Of course I’ve seen him, he’s my brother. I’ve put up with his constant nagging for thousands of years, it’s kinda hard to not see him when he’s up in your face saying _’Donghyuck don’t do that.’_ _’Donghyuck stop it right now.’_ ” and so on. You get the idea.” Donghyuck smiles at him, all canines and empty eyes. He looks like a baby wolf planning how best to rip Taeyong’s throat out. At this point, Taeyong wouldn’t put it past him.

“I meant recently, in the last month.”

“Ah,” Donghyuck stops swinging back in his chair, his smile quickly replaced by a grimace “No, I haven’t.”

“But you know where he is?” Taeyong leans forward slightly, Donghyuck knows something, that much he’s sure of.

“Sort of, in some ways,” Donghyuck looks slightly shifty as if he’s looking for the first possible way out of this conversation and out of the cafe. For the first time, Taeyong has him on the defensive and he has absolutely no clue why “What’s it to you anyway?”

“I’m worried about him.”

Donghyuck snorts “That’s a new one. But trust me, Lee Taeyong, you shouldn’t have any reason to be worried about my brother, you should be more worried about the people he’s been sent to take care of.”

“What do you mean? That Kun guy said something about either you or Doyoung having to go do something in a court, is that what this is about?” It’s like a puzzle slowly coming together in his mind, only it’s one of those ones with over a thousand pieces that you do on a rainy day as a kid when you’re bored out of your mind and half of the pieces are lost behind drawers and down the back of the couch and all you can manage to put together is a shaky looking framework.

Donghyuck makes a noise of disgust deep in his throat, he sounds like a cat trying to cough up a hairball “ _Kun_ , I should’ve known it’d be him. “

“Well does it have something to do with this?” Taeyong presses.

“I’ve already said too much,” Donghyuck says, palms up and shoulders raised in an over exaggerated shrug.

“But you haven’t said anything?”

“My darling brother is fine and he’ll undoubtedly be back eventually. Time works differently for us than it does for you humans and he probably just has no clue how long he’s actually been gone, so don’t get too worked up about it,” he stands, brushing off his jacket, the rings on his fingers reflect what little is left of the evening sunlight in a dazzling galaxy of silver and gold. The one on the middle finger of his left hand stands out amongst the others, a singular red stone, the colour of fresh blood, he’s playing with it subconsciously as he stands there, twisting it around his finger. There’s something carved into the band, but the writing is too small and Taeyong can’t make it out no matter how much he strains his eyes.

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” Donghyuck says, a final parting statement “Remember that, and keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong.” He wiggles his fingers at Taeyong in a weird little half wave, there’s a noise like a fuse blowing and then he’s gone, as quickly as if he’d flicked a switch. Taeyong jumps slightly and quickly turns his head from side to side, scanning the almost empty cafe to see if anyone else had noticed Donghyuck vanishing into thin air. But, thankfully, for once the universe is on his side and everyone seems to be absorbed in whatever conversations they’re having or whatever they’re looking at on their phones.

Taeyong lets out a defeated sigh and slumps in his chair, crossing his arms on the table and leaning his forehead on them. Everything he tries just comes to another dead end. It’s like when Doyoung left he locked every door behind him with the express intention of pissing Taeyong off. And it’s working. No matter how hard he tries he can’t find out if Doyoung’s okay and that’s all he wants to know. Really. He doesn’t even care if Doyoung never comes back. In fact, he’d probably be happier if Doyoung stayed in his own dimension for the rest of Taeyong’s life so that he never had to see his stupid face and his stupid sparkly eyes ever again. Actually no, that’s a lie, Doyoung’s stuff is cluttering up his apartment and he wants it gone. But that’s the only reason why he’s still hoping that he’ll come back.

He gets up to leave, tucking his jacket under his arm and eyeing his drink one last time before deciding to leave it where it is. _That was a great waste of money_ he thinks to himself. Jeno calls out to him when he’s halfway to the door.

“Hey Taeyong,” He’s grinning his trademark grin and it makes his face seem brighter than the fairy lights strung up on the wall behind him. Taeyong is pretty sure that Jeno and his smile are the sole reason why this cafe does so well given its fairly average coffee and uncomfortable seats “If you see Mark can you tell him that he left his jacket at my dorm, he’s not answering his phone and I think he’s probably lost that as well. You know what he’s like.”

“Sure thing.” Taeyong says and he can’t help but smile back. 

“Thanks! I’ll see you again soon!”

Taeyong’s smile lasts until he makes it out of the coffee shop and then the door clicks shut and his bad mood comes back in full force like a swarm of bees buzzing around his head. He kicks at a rock out of frustration, only it’s a lot bigger and heavier than it looks up and he ends up stubbing his toe and cursing loudly. The rock doesn’t budge. Every step sends pain shooting through his foot like lightning and now he’s mad at himself and his lack of impulse control as well. Just to make everything even better. 

There’s a little gremlin voice in the back of his head telling him to call Yuta and ask him if he knows anything about where Doyoung is, but the voice sounds a lot like Ten if Ten gargled gravel and then inhaled helium and listening to the real Ten has never got him anywhere good in the past so why should he listen to this weird little brain incarnation of him? He pushes the voice as far back as he can in his mind until it’s barely even static and carries on home. Shoving his hands deep into his pockets. 

The fingertips on his right hand brush against something red hot, hotter than the embers of a bonfire, and he yelps in pain and snatches his hand back at lightspeed. There, stuck to his hand is the card Jungwoo had given him in the club all that time ago, a phone number emblazoned across it in burnished gold, smoke curls from the edges of it in thin wisps. Which is weird, because first of all these definitely aren’t the trousers he wore to the club, and secondly, despite his pretty shit track record when it comes to laundry, he has actually washed all of his clothes since then and he’s certain that he’d forgotten to take the card out of his pocket when he did it and turned it into watery mush along with a shopping list and a coupon for free fries. He’d been more sad about the coupon than anything else.

The card is still stuck resolutely to his hand, no matter how hard he shakes it. It isn’t red hot now, just faintly war. Gently, he pulls at it and it comes free. He holds it at arm’s length between two fingers as if he’s afraid that it might grow teeth and bite him. _Maybe this is a sign,_ he thinks to himself _maybe I should call the number._ Then again, this could be Ten’s idea of a prank or maybe he’s finally lost it, that conversation with Donghyuck could’ve easily been the final straw that made the last threads of his sanity snap.

But, in life, there’s only things that happen and things that could’ve happened, but don’t and you spend your whole life wondering about. It’s a fairly sketchy philosophy. Taeyong lives by dancing around common sense and leaping without looking first to make sure that he’ll land somewhere safe and not in a shark tank. The shark tank is a metaphor. Mostly. His fifth-grade science trip had been a bit odd. And therefore, a dodgy philosophy that sounds like a dumbed down version of something that Plato might’ve said is enough to convince him to unlock his phone and type in the number.

Jungwoo answers on the second ring.

 _”Hello?”_ His voice is quiet as always but colder than the cruelest winter days. Taeyong already regrets this so much.

“I have some questions,” Taeyong says “And I think that you might have the answers. Or at least some of them.”

Jungwoo laughs and it makes Taeyong’s skin crawl _”It’ll cost you.”_ Taeyong wouldn’t be shocked if Jungwoo decided to rip out his kidneys or maybe his right lung as a payment _”Meet me on the roof of the library.”_

“You’re not allowed up there” Taeyong says dumbly.

 _“Live a little.”_ Jungwoo says and Taeyong can hear his knife like smile echoing down the line _“C’mon Taeyong, rules are made to be broken.”_ There’s a burst of static and silence. Taeyong pulls his phone away from his ear and glares at it as if that’ll magically make the call connect again. With a sigh, he turns on his heel and heads back onto campus towards the library.

As it turns out, the door to the roof isn’t even locked. Either admin didn’t think that university students had the spare time and/or energy to try to sneak up there, or Jungwoo had something to do with it. Taeyong suspects the latter.

Jungwoo is standing at the edge of the roof, his hands tucked into his pockets. He’s facing Taeyong and he smiles when he sees him, oddly feral as if he's planning how to eat Taeyong alive. The early afternoon sun floats behind his head like a blinding halo, creating an aura of gold and fiery white and it makes it difficult to look him in the eye for more than a few seconds without having to look away.

“You know,” Jungwoo’s voice isn’t any louder than usual, but somehow Taeyong can hear him from all those meters away without having to strain his ears “For a second there I doubted whether you’d actually come. But I know how terrible it is to be kept in the dark, you’re only right to want answers.”

“You said it’d cost me,” Taeyong says, still not leaving the doorway. It’s like a security blanket, he feels like he could still escape if he wanted to although he doubts that Jungwoo would let him. Jungwoo’s words from earlier had been ricocheting around his head like a bullet. He’s seen enough films in his lifetime to know that no good comes from ignoring things like this or else one second you’re plunging into something headfirst and the next you’re giving up your house, your belongings, and your first born child. When the sketchy demon/pretty man/melodrama villain tells you that the truth has a price, its common sense to ask what that price is.

“Nothing serious,” Jungwoo’s smile finally reaches his eyes and they crinkle at the corners. It looks too much like a frown “I only ask that you promise that some time in the future when I ask you a question, you’ll answer it truthfully. And in return for that promise, I’ll do the same for you now.”

Taeyong considers it for a second. He doesn’t have many secrets, he doesn’t like the way that they make his chest feel heavy and sit solidly in the pit of his stomach like a weight, always nagging at him until he tells someone. Normally he tells Ten, who’ll then tell everyone he and Taeyong are mutual friends with and at that point it stops being a secret. The only other inconvenient thing that Jungwoo could probably ask for is his credit card details, but at this point, there’s only tumbleweed and dust in his bank account so Jungwoo is more than welcome to those. It seems fair enough.

“Deal.” He says firmly.

“Perfect.” Jungwoo’s smile vanishes like a blackboard wiped clean, and he steps forward, grabbing Taeyong’s left wrist and pulling it forcibly upwards. Taeyong stumbles slightly and opens his mouth to shout at Jungwoo and tell him to _'quit whatever the fuck it is that he thinks he’s doing'_ but before he can, Jungwoo pulls a knife out of his sleeve, and in a flash of silver and gold cuts a quick line across both his and Taeyong’s thumbs before pressing them together. His eyes burn the violent gold of a supernova and then as quickly as it started, he drops Taeyong’s wrist and steps back.

“Dude, what the _fuck_ ” Taeyong glances from Jungwoo to his hand and back again “Do you have any idea how unhygienic that shit is? And even if you ignore that it’s just plain gross.”

“It’s a blood oath now,” He says, wiping his thumb on a silk handkerchief. Who the fuck even owns a handkerchief “You can’t back out of it now and neither can I.”

Well, that’s just great.

“Does that mean I can ask you what I want to ask you now?”

Jungwoo spreads his arms wide “Ask away.” He’s as open as a book that’s been padlocked shut. Which is to say: not very open.

“And you’ll tell me the truth?” A nod. His eyes never leave Taeyong’s face. Pinning him in place “Where’s Doyoung?”

A sigh. He sounds disappointed “I was hoping for something more interesting. Oh well, make do with what you must.” The last part isn’t aimed at Taeyong, but at himself “He’s at court. Not a law court, his kingdom’s court. Things have been, well, turbulent to say the least, where he’s from and your dear Doyoung hasn’t been back in a very long time. I suspect they needed him back to help defuse one of the more serious situations.”

“But why him?”

Jungwoo hums thoughtfully, tapping his foot on the floor in an odd staccato rhythm before he replies “There are few things I can’t tell you and sadly that is one of them. Just know that he’s more powerful and more important than he lets on.” 

“Why can’t you tell me?” Taeyong’s voice comes out whinier than he’d have liked and Jungwoo just smirks and taps his index finger against his lips one, two, three times. “If you can’t tell me that, can you at least tell me why you two hate each other so much?”

“Hate is such an ugly little word. What’s between us runs much deeper than that.” Taeyong can’t help but snort. It’s so fake deep, something that he would’ve posted on Facebook in his early teens.

Jungwoo takes hold of one sleeve of his shirt and pulls it down, turning slightly so that Taeyong can see his back. A scar snakes its way from underneath where his shirt ends and up across his shoulder to his neck where it ends in a tapered point. It’s twisted and still red raw in places, the skin around it puckered where it healed in ways that it shouldn’t have. Most of it has faded to silvery white and it stands out from his skin like a brand. Everything about it is jagged and wrong looking, a rift cut through flesh and blood and sinew. There’s another scar on the other side of his neck, from what he can see it looks to be a mirror image of the one Jungwoo is showing him. Taeyong reaches his hand out to touch it, he isn’t sure what makes him do it. Slowly, he runs his fingers across it and every inch of it burns, it should be impossible for anything human to have heat like this running through their veins, but Jungwoo’s different. He already knows that.

“Did he do this?” He asks, voice barely more than a whisper “Did Doyoung…” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“We were friends once, for more years than I can remember we were closer than the moon and the stars. I trusted him with my life and he betrayed me,” Jungwoo says, he sounds vulnerable and sad and it’s the most human that Taeyong has ever heard him “It was a long time ago, thousands of years before you were born, but things like that that are hard to forgive.”

Taeyong doesn’t know what to say, so he stays silent. With a shrug, Jungwoo shifts his shirt back onto his shoulder and turns again so that he’s facing Taeyong “I want you to know that Doyoung is incredibly selfish. He’ll put his pride and his reputation before you, no matter how much you may think you mean to him, even if it means letting you fall.” In Jungwoo, Taeyong has noticed, anger burns like a forest fire, out of control and unstoppable, tearing down everything in its path.

 

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. There’s a disconnect a mile wide between the Doyoung he knows and the one of Jungwoo’s vague stories. The Doyoung he knows is as stubborn as a mule and arrogant and thick-headed, but never cruel, never without reason. The Doyoung that Jungwoo tells him of is icy and indifferent, two-faced and untrustworthy. It can’t be true and yet… And yet Taeyong has only known Doyoung for a few short months, has only seen one side of him, one compartment of his personality. Doesn’t know anything about him, about who he actually is. All he has is a mosaic pieced together from what other people have told him. Jungwoo has known him for longer, knows who he truly is, or at least who he truly was.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt, if not by him then by the people he chooses to surround himself with.” Jungwoo isn’t the best judge of character seeing as one of Doyoung’s closest friends is Taeil and Taeyong doubts he could do much harm to anyone unless they’re Ten.

 

The silence fills the air between them and it’s almost palpable. Jungwoo cocks his head to one side and blinks “I’ve told you all I can for now, if you want to ask me anything else you have my number. I should get going, I’ll see you again, Taeyong.” And with that, he spins around and sprints to the edge of the roof and leaps. The way he jumps reminds Taeyong of a leopard. For a second he hangs there, suspended in the air and it looks as if wings should unfurl from his back and carry him skyward, but instead he just vanishes like smoke blown away like the wind. Unlike Donghyuck’s magic which had been bright flashes, Jungwoo’s is more the absence of light.

Instead of walking home, he takes the bus. Surrendering the last of his spare change to stand awkwardly at the front of the bus and wait for it to get to his stop. There are never any seats, but he takes the bus so rarely that he always manages to forget that and thus never learns from his mistakes. 

The stairs up to his floor seem to stretch on like miles, it’s like he’s climbing a mountain but he perseveres and makes it to the top without stopping despite the fact that he feels like someone has suctioned all the energy out of him with a vacuum cleaner. He misses the lock three times when he tries to put his key in to unlock it. It’s like being drunk but worse, he has the lack of coordination but none of the fun side effects. At least he won’t have a hangover in the morning.

Everything is exactly how he left it. Dirty dishes piled up on the sink, his jacket slung over the back of a chair, paper scattered across the table from where he’d been studying the night before, Doyoung sitting in the middle of the couch, a stack of overdue library books balanced by the door.

_Doyoung sitting in the middle of the couch_

He looks tired, the bags under his eyes the dark blue-purple of duck and his shoulders are slumped. The clothes he’s wearing are different to anything that Taeyong’s seen him in before. He’s wearing a black dress shirt, it’s simple, but as he shifts slightly is moves like water and it’s cut to fit him. This isn’t something he got off the sale rack at Walmart, that’s for sure. The top few buttons are open and there’s a thin silver chain around his neck, the ring that hangs on it is startlingly red against his pale skin. Normally his hair is neat and perfectly styled, but today it’s messy as if he’s run his hands through it countless times. It looks better this way.

Taeyong sees red “You said _a couple of days_.” He spits, fury embedded in every word. His fuse isn’t normally this short, but he’s tired and he’s been looking for answers all day and Doyoung decided to turn up out of nowhere with no warning.

Doyoung smiles sheepishly “I guess I owe you an explanation.” He looks genuinely sorry, his hands twisting awkwardly at the bottom of his shirt, and Taeyong’s anger burns out like flash paper. 

“You do.” He says, and it lacks the bite of his earlier words.

“You better sit down then,” Doyoung catches his arm and gently pulls him onto the couch next to him. Taeyong settles himself on the opposite end to Doyoung and pulls his knees up beneath his chin. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t forget what Jungwoo said earlier and the scars that warped his back.

“It’s kind of a long story,” Doyoung says, brushing his hair out of his eyes and drumming his fingers on his legs. He’s nervous, Taeyong realises, this is the first time that he’s seen him nervous.

“Good thing I’ve got a lot of time then.”

**Author's Note:**

> any feedback is appreciated :D  
> [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/IoveIines)


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